Local orgs supporting Ukraine
Moment of Joy Monday
With all eyes on Ukraine, our news feeds have been bleak and heavy. So today, I went searching for some good-vibe stories that might bring a little bit of joy to your inbox and offer some ways to support others in our Colorado communities and beyond:
🇺🇦 You can help the citizens of Ukraine: There are dozens of local, national, and international agencies working to provide services, supplies, and other forms of aid to sheltering Ukrainians, now and in the aftermath of conflict. Here’s a list of how and where to contribute to the cause.
👐 A CU student started a nonprofit to support her family back home in Tanzania. Angel Mollel has given the community of Maasai — the small village in Tanzania where she is from — water, electricity, and sponsors through her nonprofit 1Love. Her current goal is to build the village a school of its own. “I feel like once a kid does receive that education, they can come back later on and help their family further,” Mollel told Denver7.
♀️✊ Celebrate the woman-owned businesses you love. Tomorrow kicks off National Women’s History Month. In honor of the observance, 303 Magazine is accepting submissions for local femme-identifying businesses to include in the directory they’re compiling for International Women’s Day on March 8.
🐺 Meet the one of the first wolf pups to be born in Colorado in more than 80 years. The Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center collared the gray wolf pup in order to study the behavior of naturally migrating wolves. The CWWC unofficially named her Akawe (aa-kah-way) with help from the public in a social media naming contest. Akawe is the Ojibwe word for “first.” “The Ojibwe people view wolves as wise mentors and have fought for protection of wolves in parts of the United States,” CWWC said in a news release. “She will be the first of many wolves to call Colorado home.”
🦊 This Boulder banjo player finds an unexpected fan of his music. As Andy Thorn played his banjo in the pine-filled foothills above Boulder, his tunes enchanted a bushy-tailed red fox — apparently with good musical taste. The fox has returned for more private concerts with Thorn (yes, there’s a video, and yes, I’ve watched it 100 times) and even inspired Thorn’s newest song collection, “Fox Songs and Other Tales from the Pandemic.”
🍜 Social media saves a beloved noodle restaurant. Here’s how the hidden noodle haven, Noodles Express, went from planning its closure to a packed restaurant with hour-long wait times in a matter of days.
— Peyton Garcia, City Cast Denver Newsletter Writer
OTHER ODDS AND ENDS
🇺🇦 Colorado takes its own stance against Russia: “Colorado simply will not stand for this attack on freedom and democracy,” Gov. Jared Polis said after issuing state-level sanctions against Russia last week. His administration will terminate any state contracts with Russian state-owned companies.
🗳️ Caucus meetings kick off this week: Starting tomorrow, Colorado voters will begin meeting to discuss their favorite candidates for statewide political positions. So what exactly is a caucus? And how or why would you get involved in one? Past City Cast Denver guest Catie Chesire wrote this great caucus explainer for Westword.
🦠 “You’ve done your part, Colorado”: According to Jared Polis, COVID is finally (mostly) over in Colorado — at least for now. The governor says healthy, vaccinated individuals can go back to living life like they did before the pandemic, and that your general practitioner will be in charge of your COVID care instead of the state. Meanwhile, the state has a new plan ready to roll in the case of any new surges of the virus.
📍 How Denver’s new city council districts will impact you: The city is considering six map options for the new districts. Some neighborhoods will go unchanged, but some will get split up.
🎧 LISTEN: Colorado is fitness-obsessed. Is there space for bigger bodies to be fit, too? Denver consistently ranks in the top fittest cities in the U.S. But growing up here, Andrea Parés never felt welcome in aerobics classes, Zumba sessions, or a simple yoga flow because of her body size. So she founded a “fat-positive” yoga class for people with bigger bodies like hers. Today, we talk with Parés about what it means to identify as “fat” and how weight stigma can misconstrue what it means to be healthy.
WANT CITY CAST SWAG?
Refer your friends to the City Cast Denver newsletter because it’s awesome and you love it — aaand because you can earn super sweet City Cast swag while doing it! Use your unique referral link to start referring now!
