Maybe the best thing about love is that it’s endlessly expandable.
In 2010, some folks who love Evergreen formed the Downtown Evergreen Economic District (DEED) to help make Main Street more accessible, safer, lovelier. Two years later they expanded both their reach and their resources by evolving into the Evergreen Legacy Fund (ELF), giving public-spirited people from Brook Forest to Bergen Park the opportunity to show some of that love where they live. Establishing the Evergreen Local Improvement District (ELID) in 2020 enabled ELF to enlist Jefferson County cooperation in its labors of love and multiply its potential manyfold.
This year, and still very much ELF, the Evergreen Legacy Foundation is once more expanding its heart for our mountain community, offering to share its experience, expertise and financial infrastructure with area residents who have their own love to give, and ensuring that compassionate help will always be available to neighbors who need it. It has taken on a much-expanded role as a community foundation, finding new ways to enable Evergreen’s nonprofit groups to do what they already do so well—within their own mission statements.
“Going forward, ELF will be a foundation for the whole community and every heart therein.”
If its name has changed a time or two in the last 26 years, its mission has only expanded. ELF remains unshakably committed to Evergreen, past, present and future. To the safety and efficiency of its ways and byways, to the health and happiness of its residents, to its natural, historical and cultural inheritance, and to its continued prosperity.
Evidence of ELF’s affection is everywhere to be seen and experienced, from the kid-friendly sidewalk on Buffalo Park Road to the Evergreen Lake North Trail to the heart-lifting murals along Main Street. Improvements to Hwy 73, including paved, striped shoulders and a handful of new, free parking spaces, were among the 17 projects identified as ELID projects. And, as it does every year, ELF has an impressive program of improvements on deck in 2026. ELF’s influence with CDOT will result in wider shoulders through stretches of lower Main Street. Projects in the offing this year include the installation of broad, paved and striped shoulders along Meadow Drive, allowing pedestrians and bicyclists some much-needed breathing space. Similar enhancements will occur in 2027 along Iris Drive and Fireweed Drive, easing the way to and from Center Stage and the Evergreen Elks Lodge.
Upon learning that the budget for a planned water feature at Evergreen Park & Recreation District’s (EPRD) new inclusive Buchanan Park playground had all but dried up, ELF was able to secure a $100,000 grant for that purpose from the Ackerman Fund. This is the first example of ELF’s ability to act as a conduit since transforming into a community foundation. The money comes from the estate of Bill Ackerman, Evergreen’s barber for many years.
The foundation is ready, willing and able to accept bequests from those wishing to give back to the community they’ve loved, and larger gifts from donor-advised funds while donors are still alive and rely on a trusted entity to make the decisions on how best to invest in Evergreen’s future. These donations will be used to create small grants to community nonprofits.
ELF was at the table when the Jefferson County School District agreed to sell its 13-acre Bergen Meadow campus to Jefferson County. As negotiated, the site where the school now stands will be turned over to the county’s Foothills Regional Housing agency for the construction of up to 120 senior apartments expected to rent for between $1,000 and $1,500 each. Bergen Meadow’s ball fields will be added to EPRD’s athletic inventory, and while the rec district has agreed to set aside space for an Evergreen community center, it has not agreed to actually build one.
Historically, ELF’s focus has been largely structural—building, fixing, enhancing. Now, however, the foundation is raising its eyes toward farther horizons, envisioning new ways to put its powerful administrative advantages to work for Evergreen. Going forward, ELF will be a foundation for the whole community and every heart therein.
Immediately following the Evergreen High School shootings on Sep. 10, ELF, in partnership with the Evergreen High School Parent-Teacher Association, established the Evergreen Strong Community Recovery Fund, which since that dark day has distributed more than $200,000 supporting security upgrades at local schools, mental health counseling and beneficial activities for Evergreen teens. The recovery fund officially sunsets in June, but ELF intends to keep the account open and active, continuing to provide a financial reservoir in case of wildfire, flood, or any other community crisis.
While ELF’s direct activities are limited to the 80439 ZIP code, love has no borders when good people need a helping hand. The good people of Kittredge have long wished for crosswalks and other improvements along busy Bear Creek Road, but lack the administrative apparatus to accomplish them. As of Apr. 1, ELF has been acting as fiscal agent for our nearest neighbor, making possible a voluntary 1 percent contribution from purchases from participating Kittredge businesses. Ten of them have already signed on to the effort, and better, safer Kittredge infrastructure won’t be far behind.
Last, but by no means least, ELF is cosponsoring the popular and productive Town Hall meetings launched last year by Leadership Evergreen’s Class of 2025. And it will soon begin serving as a data hub for the entire Evergreen community, providing reliable and up-to-date information about special districts, governmental activities, local nonprofits, area events, and volunteer opportunities for any resident who wants to put their hands where their heart is.
“ELF was at the table when the Jefferson County School District agreed to sell its 13-acre Bergen Meadow campus to Jefferson County.”
As ELF continues to grow in service to its community, it’s pleased to welcome four new faces to its 13-seat board of directors, each one committed to Evergreen and the safety and happiness of its citizens: Sue Dorsey, COO of the Gates Foundation; Dale Flanders, executive director of Evergreen Christian Outreach; Kelly Haley, CPA with Robert & Associates, and Alli Mueller, longtime trustee of a family foundation.
Sadly, the organization must also be in another way diminished this year as Linda Kirkpatrick, former ELF board member and its first executive director, steps down due to health issues. Among Evergreen’s most active advocates, Kirkpatrick has a well-earned reputation for elevating the professionalism of every nonprofit she’s been associated with, most notably the Mountain Area Land Trust, where her 10-years of service included two and a half years in the executive director’s chair.
Be assured, however, that another caring and capable neighbor will be found to fill Kirkpatrick’s role, if not her shoes. It will be someone who shares the Evergreen Legacy Foundation’s core values: Trust through transparency, purposeful investment, collaboration over control, innovative problem-solving, and stewardship of place and future. And it will be someone who passionately devotes their time and talents for the same reason ELF was created so many years ago, the principle that guides the foundation’s every deed and decision: “For the love of Evergreen.”
To learn more about the Evergreen Legacy Foundation, visit evergreenlegacyfdn.org
