This is a story about a building. It’s a safe building, but it’s not a soft building.
It’s the Julie McAndrews Mork Building, headquarters for the Anchor Center for Blind Children.
There are plenty of edges to this building. Plenty of chances to trip, to skip, to fall, to hit a wall.
“But the building is giving the kids so many clues,” says Anchor Center executive director Alice Applebaum.
The surface of a floor tells them where they are. Indentations in wall mouldings tell them they’re approaching a classroom. The strong colored light shooting through windows tells them they’re in the gym.
“Oh, this is all about light, not about darkness,” Applebaum says. “That’s what these kids are about. The light.”
The building cost $8 million with its $1 million endowment. It was a dream, then a goal, then a project as it rose in 11 months in the Stapleton neighborhood of Denver. On opening day, contractors had tears in their eyes as they saw the children careening through the hallways.
Anchor Center is one of the charities seeking funding from this year’s Post-News Season to Share campaign.
About 400 blind or visually impaired children, from newborn to age 5, pour through the building each year. It’s just a year old and barely shows the scuff marks these racing preschoolers must leave in their trail.
On a recent day, a class sang Beatles songs and a troupe of tap dancers shuffled, hopped and stepped. Lunch period ended with a cleanup by the kids that would be the envy of any mom or dad. It took awhile, but that’s the deal.
“Everything takes a long time,” says Applebaum. “We find a speed where they are comfortable. We help them find out what the world is about. And this building is like having an extra staff person.”
If the building is special, the park outdoors is an inspiration. The children can walk the Braille Trail, embedded with the alphabet and the numbers 1-10. A sunflower garden is ready to surrender its seeds. The pizza garden offers up tomatoes but ignored the cheese and pepperoni the kids planted. A knoll provides the children a place to climb up, roll down and squeal in the summer sun.
“We use as many natural materials as we can,” says Applebaum. “You don’t get good information from plastic. You can’t tell the difference between a wagon and a trike.”
The goal is to make these challenged children ready for kindergarten, ready for the world they can’t see but can surely embrace.
It’s just the beginning for them.
Between the classrooms, inscribed on the wall, is this: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
They can’t see it, but they already know it. By heart.
Anchor Center
for Blind Children
Address: 2550 Roslyn St., Denver
In operation since: 1982
Number served last year: 400
Staff: 23
Yearly budget: $1.56 million
Percentage of funds directly
to clients/services: 80
