Summary
Organization name
Lifespan Local
2018
Tax id (EIN)
87-3136973
Category
Community Improvement & Capacity Building
Organization Size
Large Organization
Address
4407 MORRISON RDDENVER, CO 80219
Denver, CO, US
Bring Blossom House to Life This Colorado Gives Day
This Colorado Gives Day, help bring Blossom House to life! Your gift will fill the space with warmth, possibility and promise — furniture, tools, technology, and art that turn a building into a vibrant home for community and discovery.
Blossom House will include early childhood education, a Denver Public Library branch, a community kitchen, youth space, community spaces and much more! Below are descriptions of what will be offered to the community:
Community Learning and Gathering Spaces
Residents said they want a space for gatherings and events. Blossom House will offer a community room capable of holding your next large gathering, along with classrooms and meeting spaces for enrichment activities.
Early Childhood Education
In partnership with Mile High Early Learning, our new early learning center will include both Early Head Start and Head Start opportunities for little ones and their families.
Community Kitchen
Our community kitchen will be a place for us to do food, cooking, and nutrition. Be on the lookout for cooking classes!
NABIYouth Space
We are building a state of the art youth space that will equip young people with the tools they need to thrive in a dynamic, 21st century world.
Denver Public Library
We believe in the power of imagination, learning, and books. Denver Public Library’s newest branch named Lena Archuleta will be located inside Blossom House!
Mental Health Services
We know that mental health matters, and we want to boost access to programming that will promote mental health access for SW Denver.
Mission
Cultivate community well-being through partnerships with local residents and community champions.
Background Statement
About Lifespan Local:
In partnership with community members, Lifespan Local was founded to address the numerous disparities— economic, health, food access, childcare, and education— that characterize the experience of diverse populations in Southwest Denver. Southwest Denver is home to working class families, immigrants and refugees, and the greatest concentration of children in Denver.
In recent years, gentrification has accelerated the rate of displacement and magnified the detrimental impacts of poverty. Historically, the neighborhoods have been ignored by powers-that-be and so community members have developed distrust of government and instead leaned on their own infrastructure to support one another.
Although Lifespan’s staff come from the community and directly reflect the lived experience of program participants, we recognize our inherent power as an organization with resources. Accordingly, in all our work, we listen to community members first and determine our responsive actions next. This approach is informed by the community based participatory research framework, which honors both evidence-based practices and practice-informed evidence.
Lifespan Local is responding to voiced community need by offering: leadership training, food distribution, public health information, maternal mental health programming, parenting supports, job training, and youth suicide prevention. In response to the pandemic, we launched a public health information team and direct cash assistance-- these pandemic programs continue today, shifting to meet evolving needs.
We invest in community members so that activities can be sustained through the increased capacity of community residents themselves. We approach our work from a systems- and strengths-based perspective with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and community-based leadership.
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Organization Data
DENVER, CO 80219