We are a group of community activists, dedicated to promoting change at a grassroots level across partisan lines; with the objective to support the Obama administration in its promise of progressive, fair, ethical, and responsible change. Many of our members were active during the presidential campaign. During the campaign we had approximately 350 folks from Park Hill, City Park, Mayfair, Congress Park, and Capital Hill neighborhoods working out of our campaign office on Colfax and Forrest in order to get out the vote for Barack Obama.

After the election, the Presidential Transition team requested that we organize house meetings to pull the campaign activists together and begin the effort to organize them into community activists. I signed up to host one of the meetings and had over twenty neighbors sign up in a matter of days.

The meeting brought together people who are interested in making our neighborhoods, city, state, and nation a better place to live. We introduced ourselves and shared the issues that motivate each of us. Our issues included alternative / green energy, climate change, universal health care, education, transportation. and getting our troops out of the Iraq war. Our mandate for the meeting was to come up with a project that we could complete prior to Inauguration Day which would have a measurable effect.

The initial project we choose was to collect Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) and distribute them to the Macedonia Grandmothers group -- an organization of grandmothers in Park Hill who are raising their grandchildren. The project combined our desire to help our environment by reducing energy usage, with our desire to help members of our local community. CFLs reduce energy usage by 74% and last up to five times longer than normal incandescent bulbs. On the down side, they contain mercury so require special handling in the event of breakage or when they have burnt out (FYI, Ace Hardware will accept CFLs for disposal). Therefore, part of our project was to provide training regarding the use, cleanup, and disposal of the CFLs. On January 15th members of our group met with the Macedonia Grandmothers and exchanged 30 CFLs for their old incandescent bulbs. The Macedonia group were quite enthusiastic and requested an additional round.

Another project was the hosting of an Inauguration Party at the Cork House restaurant the evening of January 20th. We had 117 of our neighbors sign up and attend the party. We played the Inauguration, sent video of the party to the Neighborhood Inauguration Ball in DC, and watched the Inauguration Balls on a large projection screen. During the President's speech, there were more than a few cheers and damp eyes.

We have several projects in the works for the future. We are:

• Collecting additional CFLs for another delivery to the Macedonia group in March and discussing an extension of the bulb-exchange program to other groups in our community and city.
• Gathering analysis of the Stimulus Plan just passed by Congress, specifically its affects on Colorado and our neighborhoods. We will use this information to support our elected officials in the implementation of the plan and ensure that the funds are used wisely.
• Organizing events with our elected officials. We plan to have events where our members can hear from our elected officials, from City Council to U.S. House Representatives and Senators.
• Organizing events with some of our smart and interesting neighbors who have ideas they would like to present to us.
• Working with existing groups in our neighborhoods to assist them with projects to improve our communities.
• Keeping our members informed of relevant community events, news, and grassroots training opportunities.

We meet twice monthly, on the second Saturday at 3pm and fourth Tuesday at 7pm of each month. Greater Park Hill Community (GPHC) has been kind enough to allow us meet to in their offices at 2823 Fairfax St.

If you would like to join the East Denver Neighborhood Volunteers for change, you can do so on-line. Our group uses Google Groups to store all of our web-based information, documents, and discussion lists. Please go to the Google Groups site (http://groups.google.com) and register. Then go to our group's site (http://groups.google.com/group/east-denver-neighborhood-volunteers-for-change) and click on the "Apply for Membership" link and follow the directions. You may want to add east-denver-neighborhood-volunteers-for-change@googlegroups.com to your email client's contact list so that the emails aren't directed to your spam folder.

Once you apply for membership to our group and the membership has been approved, you will have access to all of our on-line resources and receive emails from the other group members.