The Giving Times January news letter

“The Giving Gals” welcomes you to “The Giving Times”

January, 2010



Events Coming Soon (in order of event date):



This Saturday, January 16, Denver Elks Lodge #17 will host a "Western Night" fundraiser, with all proceeds to benefit Colorado Special Olympics. Here's the info:
Western Night
Denver Elks - 2475 West 26th Avenue
Dinner at 6:00pm
Races (place your bets!) and Dance to follow.
Tickets are $15, which includes a steak dinner. Wear your best Western duds, bring your best squeeze, and have a good ol' time!
Elks Lodge #17 has served our neighborhood for 128 years!

Valdez Day at Buchi Café Cubano – Thurs, Feb 4th (8am-9pm)
Eat at Buchi on the 1st Thursday of the month and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Valdez PTO. Eat a great meal and support our local schools.

Highland Moms Families First Story Time, Feb 6th, 1-2pm
The Highland Moms Charitable group is co-hosting their February Story time – please bring your kids and join us! This is a great way to get your kids involved in a volunteer activity. If you would like to attend and / or supply a snack please let Heidi Olivera know (heidiolivera@comcast.net) by Jan 29th as we are limited to how many people can attend.
2163 S. Yosemite Denver, Colorado 80231
Mission of Families First: To provide services which strengthen families, empower parents, nurture children, and end the cycle of child abuse and neglect.
Attendees are families in their neighborhood, additional invited families, and some children from their treatment center.
They host it in their lobby around the fireplace, so it is cozy.
The theme of the Feb story time will be Houses. They have a reading specialist who has chosen two books and will do the reading.
We should bring a nonmessy, somewhat healthy, easy snack and needed paper products for about 40 people.
If we have an older child attending with us who would like to read a short favorite book to the group, we can let her know.
Following the books, they will facilitate a craft (often related to the theme).
Snack sometimes is in conjunction with the craft or following the craft.
Alice will arrange a short tour of Families First following the story time.
We should plan to be there from about 12:50 to 2:30 p.m. (2:00-ish if you are not interested in staying for the short tour).
We should plan on a max of about 20 HMs/kids.


On February 10th, Buenos Aires Pizzeria will donate 15% of all dine in lunch and dinner purchases to Clayton Early Learning, the non-profit that I work for. Buenos Aires Pizzeria, is a little outside of the 'hood (downtown) but the food is yummy and worth the drive!


Please join us for the 2nd Annual Brown International Academy Casino Night!
A night of food, drinks and casino games - a win/win for you and the students and teachers at Brown!
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 ~ 7:00 - 11:00 pm.
The Historic Grant Humphreys Mansion ~ 770 Pennsylvania Street * Craps * Roulette * Blackjack * INCREDIBLE prizes * Plus a separate POKER tourney - $25 buy-in - Space is limited - this sold out quickly last year! Live Music and Fabulous Food from some of Denver's top restaurants including: Mizuna, Sullivan's, Coral Room, Happy Cakes and Red Trolley. Beer from Del Norte Brewing Co. Your ticket also includes one drink ticket and plenty of funny money for the casino games $40/person - $75/couple 21 and over, please
Email BrownPTO@gmail.com for more info and to purchase your tax-deductible tickets!


You can help!:

Wee Cycle
It is that season for more "stuff"! If your house is busting at the seams after the holidays then donate your gently used infant and toddler gear that is no longer needed, think of donating it to families that could use it. WeeCycle is a nonprofit organization that helps low income families with infants and toddlers, in the Denver metro area, by providing them with new and gently used baby gear free of charge. We acquire the gear through charitable donations of individuals and businesses and distribute it through local community organizations.
A Highlands drop off location is open from 9:00am to 6:30pm at 3443 W 30th Avenue. Other drop off locations are in Stapelton, downtown Denver, Wash Park, Lakewood and Golden. Check out www.weecyclecolorado.org for more information about WeeCycle, the other drop off locations, and how to make financial contributions.
The Charitable group is working on trying to plan a wee cycle donation event …. Stay tuned for details!

Big City Mountaineers
Big City Mountaineers is a Denver-based nonprofit that gets inner-city, urban teens outdoors. we are looking for volunteers with event planning experience to help us launch hour first ever spring benefit, slated for April 2010. BCM has been around 20 years. More info on our mission and who we serve can be found at bigcitymountaineers.org. Contact fellow HM Hillary Harding at hillary@bigcitymountaineers.org or 303-271-9200 ext 402 to volunteer or for more info.

Jackie Coppola teaches at Emily Griffith High school and has started a program to help teen mommies by collecting donations. Our girls need anything and everything from maternity clothes to baby stuff to clothes to shampoos to car seats. Anyone who would like to donate can drop off at my house at 5094 Meade St...and leave items on my enclosed porch. I am also willing to pick things up and can be contacted at jackie920.coppola@gmail.com. This is a great way to support our Denver Public School students.

Check out this … donate a day of time at a local school and get a FREE day at Disney! http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/WhatWillYouCelebrate/index?name=Give-A-Day-Get-A-Disney-Day
Support the Toy Library at the Smiley Branch! (see details below)


Tips and Tricks!

Have a child having a birthday sometime soon? Instead of gifts, ask the attendees to bring a new toy for the toy library!

Call Vietnam Veterans of America if you are doing spring cleaning and have items to donate … 1800775VETS

Help out single Moms, elderly neighbors and others that may need a hand! Remember, City ordinance requires that Denver businesses remove snow from their sidewalks within four (4) hours after a snowstorm ends and Denver residents remove snow from their sidewalks within 24 hours after a snowstorm ends. Violators that fail to remove snow from public sidewalks can receive fines ranging from $150 to $999. Lend a hand and help others get their sidewalks cleared.

Suzanne Vorlage’s family owns a villa in Tuscany (30 minutes north of Florence) that is available for donation for auctions with a reserve bid. If interested contact Suzanne at svorlage@yahoo.com. FYI, the villa is up for auction Jan 20th to support the Colorado Ballet. (Adjacent to the villa is a cottage comprised of 1 bedroom, bathroom, livingroom, diningroom and kitchen. It over looks a pool, which overlooks Lake Bilancino. It is truely a beautiful place.)




If you have items to be included in the February Charitable Group Newsletter please send them to Kristen at skywalkerspeth@yahoo.com.



Smiley Toy Library
By now, you might have heard that the Northwest Denver Toy Library located at the Smiley branch (46th and Tennyson) needs to replace their toy inventory. We have several registries set up and we were remiss in mentioning how to access the "wish lists". One of the most important things is that we do need a receipt, gift receipt or packing list to show that the toys were bought after August 2009. This will keep us current with the latest regulations.

At walmart.com, click on "gift cards and registry," click on "wish lists". Enter "toy" as first name and "library" as last name. This should direct you to our registry which lists Marjorie Herlth as the co-registrant.

At target.com, click on "gift registries and lists, " select "Target lists" and click on the advanced search. Under "organization", please type "Toy Library". This will direct you to the Denver Toy Library wish list.

At toysrus.com, click on "Wish Lists" and change "search by" from "creator" to "gift recipient". Please enter, last name, "library" and first name "toy". This will direct you to our wish list created by Marjorie Herlth.