Next Ministries in Colorado Springs has been involved with something called Brothers Redevelopment. Brothers Redevelopment is a Denver-based nonprofit organization that provides housing and a variety of housing-related services for the region’s low-income, elderly and disabled residents. As many residents from the Colorado Springs area call Brothers for help, many may not fit their criteria to work with. As Brothers knows what Next Step does within the local community and our type of work, they will let a homeowner know about us to reach out to, and hopefully we may be able to meet that homeowners’ needs in some way during our summers.

Another organization called CONO works with neighborhoods in Colorado Springs. Their work could look like anything from helping a neighborhood organize an HOA, a safety program, or other community type get togethers. Additionally, another organization here in town is called RISE – they exist to support young people who run community service projects. This could look like anything from a local school outreach, backpack drive, or a golf tournament.

Now, each of these organizations have decided to get together to see how we could focus our skills and efforts into a certain neighborhood. As this neighborhood/area within the city meets many of the criteria each of our organizations use, we have began planning how to put the word out and help homeowners within this focused area.

A large part of this is something called the Paint-A-Thon. Brothers Redevelopment has done this in Denver with success over the years and wants to implement it down in the Springs. This would help homeowners paint their homes with volunteers from the local community doing the work alongside them. We’d also focus on cleaning up the area in hopes of making it a safer place for the community. Each homeowner will be encouraged and given ideas of how to not only work on the project themselves with volunteer groups, but organize and get to know local neighbors through helping with others’ homes, sharing meals, or organizing an event to meet and celebrate their neighborhood with one another.

Next Step Colorado Springs is excited to see where this community development and community involvement goes for this certain neighborhood. As much of this is in the works, including how to go about reaching out to community members, we are enthused about the start of these relationships and collaborations, together.