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The Importance of Housing

Glenwood Springs City Councilor, Sumner Schacter, was on hand Friday to introduce Glenwood's new Director of Housing, Kevin Rayes, and to share activities going on that address the ever-worrisome issue of affordable workforce housing in the City. Prior to accepting his current position, Rayes had been working in Aspen for the past 6 years after earning his Master's degree in city planning in Texas. His work in Aspen did not address Rayes's desire to make meaningful differences in the lives of working people, and he was excited by the opportunities and challenges in Glenwood.

Even if our own housing is secure, the scarcity of affordable housing in our community affects all of us. We can take pride as a community in approving a tax on lodging in 2022 that funds housing initiatives in the city focused on attainable housing.

The goal of the city's housing initiatives is to stabilize housing for those cost-burdened. Cost-burdened refers to individuals or families that spend more than 30% of their income on rent. A 2023 housing study found that 44% of Glenwood Springs residents are paying in excess of 30% on rent. With the Workforce House Fund dollars, the City is beginning an employer-based rental assistance pilot program in partnership with businesses to offset rent burdens for local workers while also reducing employee turnover.

The City is also a member of the West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition (WMRHC) that also seeks creative solutions to address housing challenges in the region. With the Coalition's funding a total of eight homes were purchased to provide affordable housing for valley workers; four of those homes are in Glenwood. Senior housing is also a focus for Rayes and the City Council, as is the preservation and protection of mobile home parks. Rayes noted that all of these activities will not solve the problem, but they begin chipping away at solutions.

There is a lot more to learn and know about the housing situation in our area. Schacter wrote an article in the Post Independent and Rayes directed members to the City's housing website. Please take time to find out more about this important aspect of our community and the actions underway by City leaders.

Learning and Leading

Those Rotarians who braved the heavy snow on Friday were treated to an excellent presentation about our local school district by Roaring Fork School District Superintendent, Dr. Anna Cole. Cole provided a thorough overview of the Roaring Fork School District with candor, humor, and intelligence.

Roaring Fork School District (RFSD) is the second largest employer in the Valley (Aspen Ski Co. is the first) employing over 1000 full- and part-time workers (500 teachers and 300 other full-time employees). They provide education to approximately 6000 students in 12 schools and 2 charter schools.

Cole considers student diversity the district’s strongest asset. 60% of students are Latinx. 40% live in Spanish-speaking households, and 50% of student families have incomes below poverty level. These strengths contribute to district challenges, too.

Upon entry into the position, Cole organized a thorough assessment of the district to understand where the staff needs to focus. The assessment results identified RFSD’s strengths as 1) building strong relationship culture, 2) prioritizing student safety, 3) deeply committed staff, 4) providing wrap-around support for families through strong community partnerships, 5) creating a stable learning environment, 6) care, and 7) high-quality, research-based curriculum.

The study identified challenges as well; 1) systemic achievement gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. Cole frankly admitted, “we are missing the mark with over half of our students,” 2) instruction is not meeting the rigor of the content taught; teachers are not appropriately challenging students enough, 3) inconsistent opportunities for cognitive engagement, 4) chronic absenteeism, and 5) weak sense of belonging.

Using these results, the district and board developed a new strategic plan targeting the district’s challenges by leveraging its strengths. The plan is outlined on the district website. A data dashboard is forthcoming which will communicate to all how the district is progressing.

Schools have become more than simply the providers of education. The high cost of living and the challenges of educator recruitment and retention have driven the district to build and operate 135 housing units with more to come. School meal programs and health centers seek to meet the needs of students and their families.

The district faces new challenges in the coming years, particularly in terms of finance and declining enrollments. School age enrollment is dropping all over the country and has been for a while. Colorado is one of the last states to experience this decline. High costs of living in the mountains lessen the required in-migration needed to maintain enrollment.

Cole concluded her presentation with Q & A that was robust and lively. Desires for another appearance by Cole were expressed so if you missed her this time, stay tuned for her return.

Access After School

Many of the Rotarians attending last Friday’s meeting had never heard of Access After School. Its new executive director, John Quinn, wants to change that. Quinn spoke at the club meeting sharing a wealth of information about this valley-wide program that provides after school support for children in elementary and middle schools from Basalt to Rifle.

Started in 2003, Access After School (AAS) serves almost 900 students each year in school-based enrichment activities and homework help throughout the year. That’s 23% of students in Roaring Fork and Garfield RE-2 school districts.

Quinn outlined the rich array of interest areas that students enjoy – cooking, guitar lessons, cursive, dungeons and dragons, chess, and more – in addition to bilingual homework help. He said AAS offers everything but organized sports, but sports clinics are included and AAS picked up coordinating band and cross-country because that’s what Carbondale Middle School needed.

Quinn noted that AAS does all of this with 4 full-time administrative staff and over 120 part-time staff, mostly teachers. The program supports learning as well as providing a safe, secure, and known place for kids to stay after school, and supporting the social and emotional well-being of students and their families.

A very popular summer program offered in Rifle each year, Boost Camp is intended to alleviate the “summer slide” in learning. For $250 a student can attend 5 weeks of summer camp 5 days/week 8 hours/day and scholarships are made available. The summer program incorporates academic support and enrichment activities, the favorite being rocketry where students learn about, build, and then launch their own rockets!

So how can you help? AAS is funded through government grants (26%), Colorado-based foundations (28%) and individual donors (17%). Families also pay modest tuition ($30 for 10 weeks 2-3 afternoons/week) for which scholarships are offered to ensure access.

In promoting “local people supporting local programs” Quinn noted that $1000 will fund free homework help for an entire school for one semester. Wow! That’s significant. AAS also welcomes volunteers to serve on the board, help with social media and branding, and sharing the word about this amazing program doing such good work.

Small but Mighty Sunlight

From Guest contributor, Jim Ingraham

Our speaker for Rotary's ski day was appropriately Sunlight's CEO, Cindy Dady. She shared her life's professional background with us. It is fair to say that she has a truly impressive background in youth winter sports programs and ski management. She explained how a confluence of her life journey and the business life journey of Sunlight Mountain brought her here. We are fortunate to have someone of her depth and breadth running our local ski mountain.

One of Dady's mottos is, "First we crawl, then walk, then run." Sunlight is small, faces unique challenges, but has great potential to serve its local community and the broader ski community as well. Its uniqueness is its strength. Dady noted two major accomplishments this past year (the crawl stage): 1) physical upgrades to the facility, from access to the lodge to the lodge itself; and 2) the new card/pass system. It is updated to the latest technology like we all see at Aspen and Vail. This allows Sunlight to get accurate customer counts, collect customer demographic and usage data, and use the data to better manage the resort.

Future plans for Sunlight include major lift improvements. Capital improvements are really hard, not only because of the need for investment capital, but because of the both permitting hurdles and pulling together a team of contractors/employees able and willing to work together to install previously-owned lifts. These won't be high-speed lifts, according to Dady, not because of the cost, but because of the desire to preserve the unique small scale and family-friendly environment.

Lastly, she described Sunlight's devotion to serving its community (kind of like us). Among a whole host of community projects, they do these: 1) programs to bring kids from places that don't typically have access to mountain sports and get them skiing; 2) involvement with injured veterans' programs which are done in Aspen and heavily supported by the Elks Club; and 3) involve indigenous Ute descendants in Sunlight.

Sunlight is an extremely popular wedding venue; its sold out for the summer! Thanks to all the Rotarians who came to the "meeting," and to Dave Alcott for making the arrangements. It was a great day with great people on a great mountain. Didn't get enough? GS Rotary is a member of the Glenwood Chamber. Sunlight is hosting Chamber on the Chair on March 8.

Spellabration

Spellebration 2025, kicked off for literacy on February 7 at the Hotel Colorado!

Literacy Outreach’s thirty-first annual spelling bee and online auction paid tribute to the Super Bowl this year. Spellebration Bowl XXXI will make a difference in the life of an adult literacy student! Basic literacy skills are the foundation for learning, enabling individuals to access information, communicate effectively, participate fully in society, improve economic opportunities, and contribute to personal development.

The Rotarian team was on-site "Moving the Chains for Literacy".

They are EVERYWHERE!

Microplastics: A Macro Problem of our ...

Microplastics. They are everywhere! And there is only so much that we can do about it.

Our incoming club president, Jim Ingraham, gave a succinct, informative, and well researched presentation about the ubiquitous nature of microplastics in our environment. Microplastics are "little, itty bitty pieces of plastic" less than 5 microns in diameter. They are so small that we cannot see, taste, feel, or smell them, but they are in almost everything we use, ingest, breathe, and inhabit. The bioaccumulation of microplastics is a bit staggering. Researchers have found microplastics in all areas of our bodies: tissues, organs, brain, blood, endocrine system, gastrointestinal system, lungs, even the placenta and blood of unborn fetuses. One study estimated that 0.5% of the weight of the average adult brain consists of microplastics.

It's hard to know how bad and what kind of bad the biological effects are. Further research is ongoing to find out whether the biological effects of microplastics on our health are causal or correlational. Causation = When one variable directly causes another variable to change. For example, warmer temperatures in summer cause both ice cream sales and pool drownings to increase. Correlation = A statistical measure that describes how two or more variables change together. For example, ice cream sales and pool drowning are correlated because they both increase in the summer.

At this point they are impossible to avoid. We cannot completely eliminate them, but we can make choices to limit their impact and our exposure.

Stop using plastic water bottles, both single-use and refillable. Opt for metal or glass.
Install reverse osmosis water filter in your home.
Limit consumption of sea salt; heavy concentration of microplastics in sea water.
Limit use of canned goods (they are lined with microplastic).
Don't microwave food in plastic containers.
Don't use single-use drink cups (Starbucks, etc.).
Don't cook with nonstick pans.
Avoid carbonated water and sodas (they are in plastic-lined cans).
Limit purchasing food in plastic packaging.
Eat foods and supplements that enhance the body's natural protection (in liver and immune system).