Community Climate Innovator Awards
Community Climate Innovator Award
Overview
The awards support our purpose to celebrate, build, and acknowledge the leadership of underrepresented communities in Boulder County. We celebrate community innovation and solutions that too often go ignored by large environmental and climate institutions– people who bring wisdom from their cultures, from living on the economic edge, from having to fix creatively, and come from an ethic of caring for People and our Planet.
Intention
We were granted a total of $8,000– $5,000 from the City of Boulder & $3,000 from the County. Though we are just getting started as our own non-profit, we wanted to showcase work from our community, and provide some funding to groups who might be too busy doing the work to apply for grants.
New: The Spirit of Community Award
We created the Spirit of Community award to honor and uplift those nominated by their communities but did not qualify for a financial award.
Process
- Nominations- Previous winners, the FLOWS leadership team, and the FLOWS council could submit nominations
- Prioritizing innovation– People not doing business as usual while meeting community needs
- Funding comes from City of Boulder & Boulder County government, so we generally do not fund groups that already receive substantial funding from them.
- Balance direct climate/environmental projects and leaders, while making space for a handful of groups centered on supporting culture, health, well-being and other forms of transformation– key ingredients of sustainability and seeds of potential climate innovation.
- Voting: 3 rounds of voting by Leadership team & 1 round of voting by FLOWS Community Council (for both awards)
Thanks to the City of Boulder and Boulder County Government for funding and supporting these awards.
These award winners regenerate our community– body, mind, and spirit– our soils, our pantries, and our vision for a more culturally vibrant, environmentally healthy, economically and socially just world.
2025 Award Recipients
Community Climate Innovator Award
Ms. Ava Hamilton
Filmmaker and Community Advocate
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Community Sustainability Leader
Ms. Ava Hamilton
Ms. Ava is an amazingly active community leader and mentor dedicated to equity and sustainability. To read from the community nomination: “Ava is an extraordinary woman. Her unwavering commitment to environmental justice has a long history. Ms. Ava is a scientist, a storyteller, and has documented much of her people’s history and culture through her independent films. As an Arapaho woman and Elder, she has a holistic view of caring for Mother Earth and from various practices and her impact in different spaces, she shares her wisdom with the community. As a Community Connector, she has engaged with the City of Boulder and beyond in deep questioning around how public policies and education systems lack a recognition of Mother Earth’s rights and a comprehensive view for her care.” We are honored to support Ms. Ava’s community and leadership and celebrate all the ways she impacts our community for environmental sustainability and social equity.
Boulder COunty rapid Response Group
Monserrat Alvarez Matehuala & Frida Silva
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Boulder County Rapid Response Group
Monserrat Alvarez Mathuala y Frida Silva
Boulder County Rapid Response Group is a network to respond to the attack on migrant communities. Colorado Rapid Response Network (CORRN) dispatchers, Frida and Monse and a crew of trained responders are building local community resilience that acts as a model for people across the state and beyond, and is a model to deal with a variety of other crises as well. BoCo Rapid Response Group was nominated by a FLOWS Community Council Member to support their mission working with targeted, persecuted and vulnerabilized communities, especially with the current federal administration.
This collective continues to grow, strategize, and educate with confirmer trainings, local canvassing, ICE watch, Know Your Rights, and family emergency preparedness. CORRN and BoCo Rapid Response Group are volunteer grassroots network that model community innovation of people coming together to organize, protect, defend and care for each other and for communities who are made vulnerable by systemic violence and oppression. They are a powerful reminder of how we can come together, organize and build resilience in moments of crises.
El Pueblo Unido jamas sera vencido! Let’s honor BoCo Rapid Response group.
Danza Mexica Grupo Tlahuitzcalli
Ahuizotl Martinez
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Danza Mexica Grupo Tlahuitzcalli
Ahuizotl Martinez
Grupo Tlahuitzcalli is a family-centered Aztec Dance Group dancing in Boulder, Colorado rooted in reviving and strengthening the philosophy, dance, and ceremonies of various Indigenous traditions, including Mexica from the regions of what is today Central and Southern Mexico. Like many Indigenous traditions around the world, for several centuries, their ancestors were forced to keep this beautiful tradition hidden in the midst of extreme persecution against Indigenous peoples and their every way of life. Today, after much work, they have the opportunity to dance and share their traditions publicly.
Led by Jefe Ahuizotl Martinez who brings his family and lineage’s teachings from Tenochtitlan, Mexico and supported by Mario Olvera, their teachings merge to create a community centered around communal values, justice, people and land. They dance throughout our region during important ceremonies such as solstice and equinox and for Frontline communities, schools, institutions and organizations for cultural awareness, cultural celebration and to support the visions and intentions of our local community.
Centered in Indigenous worldviews, practices of communal care, alignment with Nature and Earth, health and wellness, inclusive of our more-than-human relatives and our ecosystems– our home. These are foundational pieces of climate justice and resilience. Thank you for helping lead this profound community work.
Mr. Frank Archuleta
Historian in Action
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historian in action
Mr. Frank Archuleta
Mr. Frank Archuleta is a second year honoree. He is a community historian and racial justice activist. Mr. Frank’s dedication and drive to bring to light suppressed history to honor the Latinx, Hispanic and Indigenous people and communities from our region are invaluable.
Frank is leading the effort to honor 200+ individuals buried and who remain unnamed in Lafayette’s cemetery. He brings to light the experiences of his communities during Lafayette’s tumultuous history as a city with deep ties to the KKK (listen more here). He researches without the internet or cell phone by meticulously checking archives, books, and newspaper articles. As the official historian for the City of Lafayette, Frank has made significant contributions to preserving local history while advocating for racial justice. He has led efforts to rightly rename the Rose Luera’s swimming pool complex and the Arapaho Center.
In alignment with our values of celebrating people who have been unjustly invisibilized, and remembering our past to improve our future, FLOWS is proud to acknowledge Frank’s work, be in community with him, and support his efforts.
Jacob Springs Farm
Andre Houssney
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Jacob Springs Farm
Andre Houssney
Equitable, regenerative farming and land practices are the backbone of sustainable living, which is why Jacob Springs Farm is a second-year winner and the recipient of our largest financial award.
Andre was born during the civil war in Lebanon, after the 2nd Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1983 and came to Boulder as a refugee at 9 years old. After traveling the world supporting small-scale farmers, Andre brought his passion and expertise in regenerative agriculture back to Boulder County.
Through Jacob Springs Farm, Andre embodies equitable, regenerative practices and values that inspire. With his diversified, beyond-organic farm, he supports the land, the grazing animals, and many immigrant communities looking for culturally beloved foods. While touring Jacob Springs, we learned that, along with being a cow whisperer(!), he helped keep Iraqi Golden Wheat from going extinct after the US bombardment on Iraq. Iraqi refugees brought their few seeds to Boulder and Andre and other farmers grew and replenished the wheat seeds. Think about the impact just of that action.
We hope Jacob Springs Farm and the enterprises they incubate will help build a more resilient Boulder community for a long time.
Jamillah Richmond
Community Educator & Edible Forest Garden Project
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Jamillah Richmond
Community Educator and Edible Forest Garden Instigator
Jamillah consistently goes above and beyond for her community– both people and environment. One of many powerful examples is when she sprang to action during a recent multi-day power outage that was an impact of climate chaos locally. She organized neighbors, made sure people were safe, and provided meals for everyone, paying for everything out of her own pocket. Jamillah communicated with Xcel Energy and kept her neighbors informed. She builds community resilience in the face of climate challenges.
Jamillah is leading the creation of an edible food garden as a resident and as a leader with Boulder Housing Partners. Jamillah is “re-wilding” her affordable housing community with native pollinators, fruit trees, plants for the senses (touch, taste, smell, and see), play areas for kids of all ages, and accessible education for the community.
With roots in civil rights activism, she mobilizes communities toward sustainability and ecological restoration, centering liberation for historically excluded populations. We are honored to be in partnership with Jamillah and are excited for the many ways she is helping transform her community and the many more she is working to transform.
Mike Wird
Community Educator for Biotecture and Permaculture, BBoy, MC
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Community educator & Artist
Mike Wird
Michael White aka Mike Wird (like word) is community educator with a diverse, inspiring set of practices. He mixes Permaculture Design and sustainable Earthship Biotecture education with his artistry as an Emcee, Deejay, Producer and Beatmaker, B-boy, and Hiphop Cultural Arts Ambassador. Mike has shared the stage with De La Soul, KRS-ONE, Pharoah Monch, Les Nubians, The Hieroglyphics and many more.
Mike has incorporated sustainability, health and wellness into community spaces locally and internationally for over 2 decades. He was an original FLOWS technician, and FLOWS was more recently honored to partner with him and his multigenerational community culture project: “FreshMode Fest” for our BVCP community events. Mike brought in the principles of biotecture and living buildings, dared us to imagine living in truly sustainable homes and communities, invited us to get acudetox, and to dance afterwards. He even made the event a fundraiser for FLOWS, despite FreshMode Fest’s own financial constraints.
A family man raising children and raising awareness about social, economic and ecological/environmental issues and their solutions, Mike was nominated by the FLOWS Leadership team for inspiring us with his demonstration projects, teaching, and the meaningful, intergenerational bridges he builds between community wellness and environmental education as a true, creative servant leader.
Milpa Caracol
Monserrat Alvarez Matehuala & Alonzo Barron Ortiz
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Milpa Caracol
Monserrat Alvarez Matehuala & Alonzo Barron Ortiz
FLOWS was so inspired by the leaders of Milpa Caracol and the hard work they put in in the most passionate, grassroots way, that they are 2nd year award winners. They found access to land with Andre at Jacob Springs farm to grow flowers, peppers and corn, so important to Indigenous and Latin@ cultures and communities. They share the fruits with Frontline communities and innovative food way projects.
FLOWS honors the community and environmental action of Milpa Caracol– of Monserrat who has long been involved in the environment and equity and is a powerful community activist. And of Alonzo, a longtime FLOWS Community Council member and the ways he has grown as a leader throughout the years. We’ve seen those seeds flourish in him and now he is literally planting the seeds of change, of food justice and sovereingty for, by and in our communities.
Thanks to Milpa Caracol for their beautiful nature-based work!
¡Español!
Milpa Caracol es un proyecto emergente con base en un territorio que cultiva alimentos como medicina y tiene sus raíces en la lucha por la soberanía alimentaria y la riqueza en salud para nuestra comunidad. Con el apoyo de la granja Jacobs Springs, cultivamos alimentos tradicionales y ampliamos las oportunidades de aprendizaje para las generaciones futuras que se apasionan por el cultivo de alimentos, la protección de los polinizadores y el cuidado de la Madre Tierra. Para Todxs Todo.
San Lazaro Water Action Council
Rosaura Martinez, Susana Rodriguez, Catalina Aguirre, Amela Aljkanovic & Julia Heins
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San Lazaro Water Action Council/ Consejo de accion de Agua de San Lázaro
Rosaura Martinez, Susana Rodriguez, Catalina Aguirre Zamora, Amela Aljkanovic, Julie Heins
Another group of 2nd year awardees, and those facing some of the clearest environmental injustices in our region is the San Lazaro Water Action Council. The 1000+ residents of the San Lazaro Mobile Home Community have lacked access to clean drinking water for over 25 years. This group of women began gathering to create pathways for a community centered approach for the clean water crisis and improving the ecosystem of their water reservoir, Cline Pond.
They are all leaders in their community in a variety of ways. Throughout 2024, a coalition came together to help support them. Thanks to Michelle’s advocacy for funding support from Boulder County, the Water Action Council, Once and Future Green, and FLOWS are implementing natural solutions for their water crisis. The Water Action Council meets monthly, strategizes next steps, and learns about solutions to the water crisis without chemicals, supporting the watershed and ecosystem, and building community voice. Please join us in honoring the leadership of the powerful women of the Water Action Council.
Ms. Theresa Halsey
Community Mentor and Advocate
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Community Mentor and Advocate
Ms. Theresa Halsey
Theresa Halsey is one of the most dedicated elders in the community. She always participates in, supports, and contributes to FLOWS events, mentors Native college students at CU, and hosts and produces an important radio show, “Indian Voices” on KGNU. For so many years, she always shows up for community. A member of the Hunkpapa Lakota tribe, Theresa has been involved in Environmental Justice work since the 1970s when she participated in activism for the closure of Rocky Flats. She was a member of the Climate Justice Leaders Program with the Just Transition Collaborative, and advocates with local governments for equity constantly.
Theresa is also a survivor of the violent boarding school system that separated children from their Native families. in spite of the traumatic experience she was forced into, today she is a fierce and strong leader in the community who has inspired many generations of scholars and activists, including FLOWS.
2025 Award Recipients
Spirit of Community Award
New this year, FLOWS’ Spirit of Community Award honors people nominated by their communities who do not qualify for a financial award, but deserve recognition, appreciation, and celebration, for the ways in which they embody the “spirit of community.”
Angela Maria Ortiz-Roa
Spirit of Community
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Spirit of community
Angela Maria Ortiz Roa
Angela Maria Ortiz Roa embodies the Spirit of Community Award. She has helped build the FLOWS community to one of care and joy. Angela has been an important part of FLOWS since we first started going out into community. Angela was an original FLOWS technician and became FLOWS’ Program Coordinator soon after. She helped develop FLOWS into an effective program appreciated by technicians and community residents alike, infusing it with fun, joy, and celebration while making our communities more resilient, knowledgeable, and cohesive.
Angela was nominated by a FLOWS team member who says “Angela takes initiative in supporting and empowering community members. She is instrumental in connecting neighbors, organizing and uplifting others by encouraging them to be engaged. As a former FLOWS coordinator, she always encouraged BIPOC people to stay engaged in issues affecting them.”
Angela has been a powerful and important community weaver supporting everything from FLOWS to Food Justice to Indigenous climate leadership, to language access including American Sign Language interpretation, to resilience, to equitable engagement with government. She has served on multiple boards, led community and now government initiatives for equity and diversity, and Climate Justice.
Angela is a beloved, powerful force for change bringing joy and vibrancy into all she does. Thanks for being an essential part of FLOWS, for inspiring us, and all the love and care you bring to our lucky community. We <3 you!
Community Roots Midwife Collective
Ancestral Womb and Postpartum Care Program
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Community Roots Midwife Collective
Ancestral Womb and Postpartum Care Program
Public health and public health access is a cornerstone of Environmental Justice. Community Roots provides that not just for community, but particularly for pregnant and nursing people and for newborn babies. They are the people who need some of the most powerful protection against air, water, and food pollution poor quality food within food apartheid, and protection from poor labor conditions and extreme heat. Midwifery provides holistic supportive care that all deserve, and that Frontline communities and People of Color especially need.
Community Roots also recognizes the need to revitalize traditional Indigenous midwifery, wellness ceremonies, and nourishing collective rematriation within Colorado.
Their Ancestral Womb & Postpartum Care Program supports healing after birth, trauma, pregnancy releases, and guide youth, community members, and birthing people with culturally-responsive, celebratory practices. They center Indigenous peoples and People of Color and is an Indigenous-led collaboration between Community Roots Midwife Collective (CRMC), Harvest of All First Nations (HAFN), and Drylands Agroecology Research (DAR).
Nominated by the FLOWS Leadership Team, we recognize Community Roots’ beautiful, important work for culturally rooted health and wellness and its important role in Environmental Justice.
Louie Lopez
Zero Waste & Cultural Leadership
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Zero Waste & Cultural Leadership
Louie Lopez
Louie Lopez was nominated by FLOWS’ director for being devoted community leader, tender, mentor, healer, educator, and change-maker. He carries the torch of inspiration from his mother, powerful community activist for culture, diversity, and social justice, Patricia Lopez. Among other things, she helped instigate Longmont’s Cinco de Mayo event over 30 years ago. Louie and an amazing team have since transformed it into a major cultural event drawing thousands of attendees each year to celebrate diversity, culture, community resources, food, low-riders, and everything from Danza Azteca, to Baile Folklorico, to breakdancing competitions (now led by his sons). This Cinco de Mayo celebration is a cultural cornerstone for Boulder County and has a long-standing commitment to being a healthy, family-oriented event. It is alcohol and tobacco free.
Louie led Cinco de Mayo in becoming zero-waste way before it was a norm, even in Boulder County. Those values of health, wellness, and sustainability for the next generations are woven into the Cinco de Mayo event in a unique, powerful way, thanks to Louie’s leadership.
Louie’s commitment to community wellness, equity, and sustainability ripple even beyond that. He developed and coordinated GRIP (Gang Response and Intervention Program) in Longmont. GRIP supported youth who were challenged by gang life by cultivating positive relationships and conflict resolution skills, personal responsibility, and a sense of belonging. He served as the Community Coordinator for the city of Longmont, Children, Youth and Families for the past 26 years and is now retired and supporting his community in a myriad of other ways.
As he moves into community elderhood, Louie is supported his loving wife, is a father to his 3 amazing sons and their beautiful families and proud father grandfather of 4 grandchildren. Help us give special recognition for these amazing achievements and community dedication of Louie Lopez.
Mi chantli
Julio Amida, Changa Hernandez & Mario Jose Olvera
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Mi Chantli
Julio Amida, Changa Hernandez & Mario Jose Olvera
Mi Chantli is a movement and arts sanctuary in Boulder, whose main goal is to cultivate community and give dancers, poets and artists a place to be. The studio is proudly BIPOC-owned. “Chantli” is an Aztec word that means home and the message they’d like us to know is that Mi Chantli es tu Chantli. They focus on Hip Hop dance classes, and also offer anything from Contemporary to K-Pop, a range of drop-in dance classes including breaking, house, Waacking, Strength + Mobility, Capoeira, and art classes. They host and hold events for Juneteenth, Indigenous People’s Day and Dia de Los Muertos.
“Mi Chantli Arts and Movement Sanctuary” says it all. Culture, celebration, art, dancing and movement are celebrated and welcomed at Mi Chantli. FLOWS celebrates and honors the same. Joy, movement, community, art, food and music across generations and cultures nourish our global interconnectedness and the medicine of movement and expression. FLOWS Leadership team nominated Mi Chantli and hopes to see the continuation of their work in the community for many more years. Help us honor that movement as we honor Mi Chantli.
Rossana Longo-Better
Community Media
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Community Voice through Community Media
Rosanna Longo-Better
Rossana was nominated by FLOWS Leadership Team for her steadfast commitment to uplift community voices in the media. She has elevated and given many in our community the opportunity to share our stories and be heard in the greater community– in English and Spanish.
Rossana is the bilingual coordinator of One Small Step at StoryCorps, with KGNU, one of only four public radio stations nationwide selected to host. She has served community media as a climate change correspondent for Radio Bilingue, produced a Storytellers of Color series, and co-hosts Paza La Voz. She is co-founder of La Ciudad, a bilingual publication serving Commerce City, “the most polluted ZIP code in the U.S.” and freelances for the Boulder Reporting Lab.
Thank you Rosanna for your work rooted in equity, environmental justice, language justice, and community-based journalism. Please join us in honoring Rossana.
will to change peer support
Mario Jose Olvera & Evan Segura
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The Will to Change: Peer-Support Masculinity Group
Mario Jose Olvera & Evan Segura
The Will to Change Peer Support Masculinity Group was nominated by a FLOWS team member who feels “deeply impacted by its work as a transformative peer support group for men and masculine-identifying people”. Founded by Mario Olvera and Evan Segura of Grupo Tlahuitzcalli, the group is grounded in the teachings of Bell Hooks’ The Will to Change. This circle creates a brave and sacred space for healing from patriarchal trauma through vulnerability, accountability, and community. Patriarchal masculinity wounds, violence, soul death, are only some of the scars that Bell Hooks invites all of us- particularly men-identifying people to explore and heal through her writing. Over six weeks, participants explored emotional expression, self-love, and nonviolent communication—building a foundation for healthier relationships and a healthy community liberated from patriarchal oppression.
In the words of the Community Council nomination: “Supporting collective “hermandad”, or brotherhood, helps us to “regenerate our community-body-mind and spirit.”” FLOWS honors the leaders and the participants’ courage to gather, learn, discuss, reflect and take action on growing their capacity for themselves, their families, their communities, and ecosystems. This work is a model for community education, which will be a necessary part of cultural change to build a more sustainable, resilient world.
Photo Gallery
2024 Awards
Intention
This award is a celebration of the leadership of our Frontline communities (especially People of Color, immigrants, multigenerational households, working class communities, LGBTQIA+ communities, youth, elders, and more), and their work connecting with Nature, building social justice, meeting community needs, carrying culture, and showcasing what is possible for Climate Justice locally.
These are residents, leaders, and experts committed to our community who think and act “outside the box”. They create powerful social impact, and leverage a diversity of structures– from individuals taking action or organizing in community, to ephemeral community groups, to businesses and nonprofits all with missions and actions that FLOWS finds inspirational. They regenerate our community– body, mind, and spirit– our soils, our pantries, and our vision for a more culturally vibrant, environmentally healthy, economically and socially just world.
Thanks to the City of Boulder for funding and supporting these awards.
Process
2024 Award Recipients
Consejo de Agua de San Lázaro/san lázaro water action council
Rosaura Martinez, Susana Rodriguez, Catalina Aguirre, Amela Aljkanovic, Julia Heins, & Manuela Longoria
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Consejo de Agua de San Lázaro//san lazaro water action council
Rosaura Martinez, Susana Rodriguez, Catalina Aguirre, Amela Aljkanovic, Julia Heins, & Manuela Longoria
1000 Residents of the San Lazaro Mobile Home Community have lacked access to clean drinking water for over 20 years. This is one of the most pressing Environmental Justice issues in our region. This group of 6 residents, all women! began gathering in early 2024 to create pathways for a community centered and led approach for their clean water crisis and improving the ecosystem of their water reservoir, Kline Pond. They are all leaders in their community in a variety of ways. Throughout 2024, a coalition came together to help support them. Together, we organized citizen research, learned about San Lazaro water infrastructure, organized tours with the community, water engineers and CDPHE, advocated for solutions with our representatives during Latino Advocacy Day, explored natural solutions and more. Thanks to Michelle’s advocacy for funding support from the County, Once and Future Green and FLOWS will implement natural solutions, hand in hand with the Water Action Council and greater San Lazaro community in hopes to finally solve their water crisis with their leadership and budding ecological expertise. Please join us in honoring the leadership of the powerful women of the Water Action Council!
Community Foraging Classes
Akasha Gabrieloff-Parish
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community foraging classes
Akasha Gabrieloff-Parish
Akasha is currently in Oregon teaching science to disinvested youth throughout the city. They are an aspiring ecologist with a passion for restoration and sharing their knowledge. Throughout their life, they have had the privilege to learn from local Indigenous leaders, and most recently received a degree in Biology/Ecology from Eckerd College. Now, they use that combined wisdom to uplift their communities. This award is for the community foraging classes Akasha held this summer. The classes wove land acknowledgements throughout, recognizing Indigenous wisdom and stewardship practices. These short, low-energy, and low-cost foraging classes for youth and young adults in the Front Range who are interested in land stewardship were about increasing accessibility for Frontline community members. Akasha held several classes specifically for People of Color and are proud to serve mainly queer and BIPOC folks, now and into the future.
Chocolate Circle
Nii Armah Sowah & Norma Johnson
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Chocolate Circle
Nii Armah Sowah & Norma Johnson
Chocolate Circle builds a thriving community among Black folks who live, work and/or play in Boulder County, cultivating trusting relationships by fostering mutual friendships, camaraderie and support for each other, offer a sense of belonging, and create safe spaces to freely share Black experiences. Nii Armah and Chocolate Circle are an important part of Boulder’s culture and play a vital role supporting the leadership and well being of Black community members… Which supports us all. As Nii Armah says, we are part of one body and we can not be healthy if the health of one part of the body is ignored or sacrificed. We grant them this award to support and celebrate their contributions to our whole community and to support their exploration of Climate Justice.
Genízaro Apache Tribal Leader
David Atekpatzin Young
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Genízaro Apache Tribal Leader
David Atekpatzin Young
Atekpatzin is a tribal elder, traditional healer, consultant, historian, author, artist, and musician. FLOWS recognizes his community leadership which is felt in any space he is in. His activism has resulted in the passage of laws protecting Indigenous ceremonies and supports a variety of community efforts. He provides a gathering space for the Indigenous community through the Indigenous People’s Community Church of the Apache Nation of Colorado, dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Indigenous religious thought, beliefs and practices and a healthy lifestyle and cooperative relations with the fungus, flora, fauna, water, air, earth, fire and sky. Atekpatzin mentors and teaches the younger generation, creating a supportive environment for healing and learning. We are grateful for Atekpatzin’s leadership, guidance, lived experience and his commitment to teach and preserve Indigenous culture, knowledge and traditions in our region and beyond.
historian In Action
Frank Archuleta
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historian In Action
Frank Archuleta
Frank Archuleta is a community historian and racial justice activist. As the official historian for the City of Lafayette, Frank has made significant contributions to preserving local history while advocating for racial justice, including being a recipient of The International Human Rights Award. FLOWS is proud to acknowledge his work and be in community with him. Frank does his research without the internet or cell phone and by meticulously checking archives, books, newspaper articles and bringing to light the lived experiences of his communities during Lafayette’s tumultuous founding and operation as a city with deep ties to the KKK. He has led efforts to properly rename the Rose Luera’s swimming pool complex and the Arapaho Center. FLOWS was honored to join the renaming of the Arapaho center and was especially inspired to meet with the Arapaho Native delegation he brought out to commemorate the occasion. Frank’s dedication and drive to correcting history and honoring and respecting the Latinx, Hispanic and Indigenous people and communities whose presence and life enrich and have shaped our region.
Jacob Springs Farm
Andre Houssney
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Jacob Springs Farm
Andre Houssney
Andre was born during the civil war in Lebanon, after the 2nd Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1983 and came to Boulder as a refugee at 9 years old. After travelling the world supporting small-scale farmers, Andre brought his passion and expertise in regenerative agriculture back to Boulder County. Through Jacob Springs Farm, Andre embodies equitable, regenerative practices and values that inspire FLOWS and that we hope the whole community celebrates. With his diversified, beyond-organic farm he supports the land, the grazing animals, and many immigrant communities looking for their culturally beloved foods. While touring Jacob Springs, we learned from Andre that, along with being a cow whisperer(!), he helped keep special Iraqi Golden Wheat from going extinct after the US bombardment on Iraq. Iraqi refugees brought their few seeds to Boulder and Andre and other farmers helped grow and replenish the wheat and seeds. Think about the impact just of that action. Jacob Springs Farm also has a farm store at 75th and Arapaho, where they sell milk cheeses, regenerative grains and other nourishing and beautiful food products.
Milpa Caracol
Alonzo Barron Ortiz & Monserrat Alvarez
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Milpa Caracol
Alonzo Barron Ortiz & Monserrat Alvarez
Milpa Caracol protects and cultivates seeds, community and teachings with all that is inherited from our ancestors, the guardians of the land. For all, all. FLOWS was inspired by the leadership Milpa Caracol and the hard work they put in in the most passionate, grassroots way. They found access to land (thanks to Andre & Jacob Springs farm), and grow flowers, peppers and corn so important to Indigenous and Latin@ cultures and communities. FLOWS honors the tenacity of Milpa Caracol– of Montserrat who has long been involved in the environment and equity and is a powerful community activist. And Alonzo, a longtime FLOWS Community Council member and the ways he has grown as a leader throughout the years. We’ve seen those seeds planted in him and how he has flourished and how he is now, literally planting the seeds of change, leadership and nourishment for and in our communities. Thanks to Milpa Caracol for their beautiful work!
refugee community Support
Ingrid Castro Campos & Susana Rodriguez
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refugee community Support
Ingrid Castro Campos & Susana Rodriguez
This project is not a formal organization or non-profit. FLOWS gives this award in recognition that amidst a community crisis like the humanitarian migrant crisis of this past year, community leaders arise to address it, alleviate suffering and make change. That’s what Susana Rodriguez and FLOWS Community Council member Ingrid Castro-Campos did. Susana and Ingrid joined forces to aid the migrant, refugee and asylum seekers crisis in Denver and our area. They stepped up and provided interpretation services and organized the collection of essential supplies, the coordination of resources, and other crucial refugee support. They helped families find homes, shelter, clothing and food, often out of their own pockets. They advocated local governments to step up in logistically and culturally effective ways. We are inspired by and grateful for their work.
2024 Photo Gallery
