Author: Carol Mcgraw
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Empty Stocking Fund: Partners in Housing bridges the gap to self-sufficiency
Cathy had lived in 18 apartments in nine years. On the verge of homelessness, a family member took her in temporarily. She and her four children were crammed into one bedroom. She was $65,000 in debt, including student loans taken out when she got an associate degree. She had a job in retail making about…
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Empty Stocking Fund: Head Start serves children living in poverty or challenging situations
Malachi Burger is 5. He’s been going to school since he was 6 weeks old. His mother, Ruth Burger, recounts a typical session when he was 4 months old. The teacher held him on her lap, recited the alphabet, told a story, then then took his little hand and helped him draw squiggles on paper.…
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Best and Brightest: Honoring diversity and sustaining the environment
This is the last of a series of 20 profiles of The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2019. Sun Lee decided that she might want to be an engineer after making a small train out of components created on a 3D printer. She’s not talking about driving a locomotive, but rather environmental engineering which…
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Fort Carson soldiers remember Holocaust, threat posed by hatred
The Department of Defense poster “Beyond Religious Boundaries” displayed last week for Fort Carson’s Days of Remembrance told a subtle but powerful story. The simple blue and white vertical-striped background, ragged in places, mimicked the uniforms worn by millions of Holocaust prisoners. Less subtle were the emotionally wrenching photos and stories of those murdered in…
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Best and Brightest: Committed to community service
This is the 11th of a series of 20 profiles of The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2019. Emmy Hendricks visited her dying grandparents every day. Later, she extended that compassion to strangers, delivering meals to terminally ill patients through a charity. She feared for her own life once when co-piloting a small plane.…
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Best and Brightest: Scientist’s interest in physics has blossomed
This is the seventh of a series of 20 profiles of The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2019. It was the moment of reckoning. Teachers and students at Discovery Canyon Campus High School had gathered to see if the student-made cyclotron would work. There were doubts, especially those of the builders. Arjun Kudinoor and…
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Best and Brightest: Changing directions means diving into new goals
This is the fourth of a series of 20 profiles of The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2019. Four years ago, Anna Kemper was practicing gymnastics. She had done the vault mount countless times, but this time tripped over a mat and crashed into the springboard. The impact broke and dislocated her elbow and…
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Empty Stocking Fund: Lutheran Family Services
As the pain of losing their 18-year-old daughter Avery in a traffic accident became more manageable, Chad and Erica Austin asked, “Does God want to bless us with another child? Is that our purpose now?” There was an array of parenting alternatives, including mentoring, fostering, adopting. Sifting through such choices could have been overwhelming. But…
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Empty Stocking Fund: Mercy’s Gate
J.P., a heavy equipment operator, had to give up work because of five surgeries. The 59-year-old father of three usually manages to get by on disability income. But this year, with the rising cost of food, utilities, medical co-payments and other expenses, he needed help. Then, one Sunday at church he heard about Mercy’s Gate.…
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Empty Stocking Fund: Community Partnership for Child Development
Joshua Martinez’s life was “completely upside down” two years ago. His wife had died, leaving him as sole caregiver for their 1-year-old son, and though he had received an associate degree in culinary arts, medical problems kept him from working. He could not find the social services he needed. Then one day, he was driving…