Our Community Focused Front – Are You In?

How important is it to you to support your community? And what does that even look like? Three years ago I wrote a variation of this article, and it’s no surprise that it’s still relevant. It seems like it was a lifetime ago considering everything that we’ve endured in the last couple of years. Yet, it’s never been more important than now to have a focus on our community!

We love our small-town feel, the sense of community and the privacy allowed by our wooded lots. As evidenced in our voting over the years, it’s apparent, too, that we do not want “city growth and development”—we have a desire to keep things small, quaint and keep our beautiful mountain views! So we must ask ourselves, how do we sustain this small-town feel and support our neighbors at the same time? We need to ask this question because many of our neighbors are local business owners, they are our firefighters, they are our teachers—we are all tied together by a common thread as this is our community.

“ …it can only be done by community members supporting community members.”

We have great opportunities to support ourselves, our businesses and community organizations by shopping locally and getting involved in programs that support our neighbors and community members. This publication and local online community sites promote businesses and charities that need your support. If you desire to keep our way of life, our peace of mind, our mountain home—step out and get involved! Apply your special skills, your time or simply your money to get plugged in to our community.

It’s really something to shop locally, recognizing the smiling face behind the counter. To be familiar with their family, to know them by name, to know that they just adopted a new puppy or lost their mother to cancer. They struggle, they work, and they are our friends. They want to live this mountain life with a semblance of self-sufficiency. They went to school with us back in the day when there was only Evergreen High School. They are the same people who remember when there was no Lake House—just the skate shack. Our community members are Colorado natives and “out-of-staters” who now call our mountain town home.

If we want to preserve our way of life, our peace of mind, our mountain homes, it can only be done by community members supporting community members. We are mountain tough, for goodness sake! Don’t we take care of our own? We shovel our own quarter-mile driveway and then shovel out the guy next door. We are late for work waiting for the herd of elk to cross the road; we pull over to help someone fix a flat, and we host fundraisers to benefit our ailing neighbor. We, too, are the lucky ones. The lucky people who get to live the rest of the world’s dream of living in the Rocky Mountains.

Brian Solis said, “Community is much more than belonging to something; it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter.” One of the best things we do in our foothills community is support great organizations and charities. Make a move this fall in supporting our communities at an event, by shopping local, or extending a hand to your neighbor. If you have a heart for supporting breast cancer patients, working out for a cause or drinking wine, join me at the 12th Annual Jazzercise Breast Cancer Fundraiser. This event started out as a way to support my aunt Rhonda, diagnosed with HER2 positive breast cancer, when I didn’t know how else to help her. Taking action by planning this event to support her, and all our customers who were survivors, provided a great outlet for everyone and raised thousands of dollars for local patients. This year, we’ve added a wine event at Aspen Peak Cellars to gather together in honor of all the wonderful women we’ve known affected by breast cancer.

Follow your heart, wherever it leads you. It’s probably what led you to our mountain town.

October 22: 12th Annual Jazzercise Breast Cancer Fundraiser at Conifer Jazzercise from 7:25 to 11:30 am, and our first Wine Event at Aspen Peak Cellars at 6 pm, supporting Komen Colorado. Registration details can be found at facebook.com/ConiferJazzercise or [email protected]