CO.created is a community storytelling project that honors the power of collaboration and the people who are coming together with our team at Gary Community Ventures to reshape the arc of opportunity for Colorado kids & families
PEOPLE
Nita Gonzáles
“There are no revolutions without poets”
Colorado’s only elder-sanctioned Día de los Muertos ceremony was started by Nita Gonzáles’ afterschool program. She wants more of the same for her kids. And when she says “her kids”, she doesn’t just mean the ones related to her by blood. She means all the children of the Chicano Movement, or El Movimiento. They’ve all come to fall under her loving and watchful eye after the movement gained life in Denver thanks to her visionary father, Corky Gonzáles — a poet himself.
Organizations & Institutions
Ednium the Alumni Collective
Financial literacy is now a DPS graduation requirement. A group of recent DPS graduates are behind that change & others.
Short Films
The Dearfield Fund
Meet some of the 150+ homeowners fueling a movement to build generational wealth.
people
Anya Dickson Arguello
30,000+ Denverites can’t access the internet. Anya is working to change that & bringing new voices to the table along the way.
Our Pick
Short films
Black Wealth Cannot Wait
Since July 2021, homeowners have been the heart and soul of the Dearfield Fund. Meet a few of those homeowners and catch a glimpse of this movement to build wealth in the Black community and beyond in a short film that has now been honored by the Telly Awards for excellence in documentary filmmaking.
Short Films
SHORT FILMS
Why 9th Grade Success is Vital
In 2019, the small town of Center, Colo. saw their high school graduation rates drop to the lowest in the state. Now, they’re among the highest. This is a story about how the town’s high school and the Center for High School Success came together, using the 9th Grade Success grant program to help their kids and community get back on-track. As of 2024, the 9th Grade Success grant program was serving 1,800 students across Colorado, and the data tells us 180 more of those students would graduate as a result of this highly proven, data-driven program. But there are 70,104 ninth graders in Colorado. In the 2024 legislative session, state lawmakers extended the funding for this program so that it can reach even more of them.
Coming Soon
These stories will be appearing on the CO.created platform soon, so make sure to stay tuned and sign up for our email list to get the latest content.
ORGANIZATIONS & INSTITUTIONS: Colorado Pay it Forward Fund (COPIFF)
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