on September 11, 2016 by in Golden News, Comments Off on Cities poised to rehab neighborhoods

Cities poised to rehab neighborhoods

Englewood is joining the cities of Arvada and Golden in taking part in the Neighborhood Rehabilitation Program-sponsored service day on Sept. 10 by enlisting volunteers to do fix-up and repair community service projects.

Neighborhood Rehabilitation –; now better known as Be a Tool –; began in Golden six years ago. This year, Golden has been joined by Englewood and Arvada as the volunteers from the three cities plan to undertake projects to meet the needs of residents who can’t do the work for themselves.

Tony Arnoldy is coordinating this year’s Be a Tool program for Englewood and she said there has been a strong response to the call for volunteers.

“We identified eight projects here in the city and we are nearing our goal of having 100 volunteers to help us do the projects,” she said. “The focus this year is to help residents be warm, safe and dry. Our projects range from removing extensive brush and bushes covering the home to painting a house.”

Some of the project homes were nominated by neighbors or representatives of city agencies, she said.

“We also went out and identified a couple places that should be on the list,” Arnoldy said. “We talked to the people who lived in the homes about doing the project and, fortunately, we were able to convince them to let us add their home to the list.”

Donations have been used to buy materials for the eight projects.

“We still could use a few more volunteers and we could use some more cash donations,” Arnoldy said. “Those interested should go to the website at beatool.org. On the page there is a tab titled Be a Tool. Click on that tab to sign up as a volunteer.”

Englewood is a loving, caring community with residents ready to help their neighbors, Arnoldy said. She expects Sept. 10 to be a success and hopes the program will continue so the city can do projects like this more than once a year.

The Day of Service is a national effort to promote community volunteerism. Companies like Xcel Energy, Kaiser Permanente and Brothers Redevelopment work with cities to take on projects. Communities like Littleton and Centennial have similar programs in their community.

Last year, in Englewood, volunteers helped clean up the kennels at Freedom Service Dogs. Other volunteers worked with Brothers Redevelopment to paint a house on South Bannock Street. And athird group, spearheaded by Xcel Energy, did cleanup and other work at the House of Hope Family Resource Center

Neighborhood Rehabilitation began in Golden six years ago.

“It was a grassroots effort that got us started as we had some areas of Golden where residents needed help fixing up and repairing their homes,” founder Dan Thoemke said. “It worked so well we began doing projects all year instead on just one day a year.”

Other communities saw what Golden was doing and asked about the program, he said.

“We are excited the two other cities have joined us,” Thoemke said of Arvada and Englewood. “We just hope we will continue to grow with other communities taking on their own projects.”

Kevin Nichols, Arvada city planner, heads the Be a Tool project in his city.

“We are always looking for opportunities to engage residents in helping other members of the community,” he said. “We felt Be a Tool would be a good way for people to volunteer to help others and give back to the community.”

He hopes to have about 150 volunteers working on eight projects that include homes and one of the city’s older parks.


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