Join us! 
Conifer Rotary meets Tuesday mornings at 8:00 AM in a hybrid format either at the Mountain Resource Center or online via videoconference over Zoom. Evening meetings are currently being held in person every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month at 5:30 PM at Our Lady of the Pines.
 
Visitors please join us, email us at rotaryclub@rotaryconifer.org and we will send you the information you need for the meetings.  Club members, check your email for online meeting details from our President.
ConiferFest 2023
 
  
For more information, click HERE
 
Vendors download the vendor contract on the Downloads tab above, or just click HERE
 
Conifer Peace Park Grand Opening
 
 
Rotary of Conifer Peace Park Grand Opening on Sunday, June 11
 
Community is invited to attend the grand opening of the Rotary of Conifer Peace Park at 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 11 at the Aspen Park Community Center, Sutton Road.
 
This celebration will feature reflections on peacebuilding and music of peace. Current and incoming Rotary Governors for District 5450 will speak, along with other persons whose work and life have been dedicated to peacebuilding.
 
The Peace Park is a collaboration between the Rotary Club of Conifer Peacebuilding Committee, the Conifer Peacebuilding Club, and the Aspen Park Community Center, with contributions from the community.
 
Peacebuilder Clubs are a Rotarian Movement creating energy and momentum for peaceful conflict resolution around the world.  The Rotary Action Group for Peace champions this program in Rotary Clubs worldwide, aligned with the first of Rotary’s Seven Areas of Focus, “Peace, Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution.”
285 Backpack Pantry Program
 

 

Children who are hungry have difficulty staying focused for learning. They experience mood swings. They have trouble participating in athletics and other activities. They experience stomach aches, headaches and fatigue. Chronic hunger impacts kids for a lifetime.

One in five children in Colorado belong to families that cannot afford food or do not have regular access to food.  The 285 Backpack Project is here to help.

The 285 Backpack Project is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Conifer and the communities of Conifer and Bailey.  We help children who do not have enough food to eat at home by providing them with easy-to-prepare weekend meals and snacks throughout the school year.  By helping to sustain these children, we want to not only help meet their nutritional needs but also promote their physical, cognitive and social development, and enhance their overall sense of well-being.

  • Rotary members order the food from the Food Bank of the Rockies to fill our 285 Backpack pantry and every week during the school year, volunteers from the community meet to fill bags with a variety of easy to prepare, nutritious foods for kids to take home.  
  • The school arranges delivery of the bags to the children whose families have requested the food.  Any child is eligible.  All families are invited by letter from the principal to participate.

 

Want to make a difference?  You can help by volunteering through the sign-up genius below, by making a donation to the Conifer Rotary Foundation or by helping to get families signed up.

 
 
Meeting Programs
Jeff Brodsky
Jun 13, 2023
Trafficking Prevention
Kelli Jackson
Jun 20, 2023
Girls On The Fly
DARK - No Meeting
Jun 27, 2023
Holiday - No Meeting
Jul 04, 2023
View entire list...
Rotary Foundation Donations
Join us in our Conifer Rotary Foundation efforts to make our local community and the world a better place.
 
 
Join us in supporting the Rotary International Foundation's many national and international humanitarian projects by clicking HERE.
End Polio Now
Rotary is an international community that brings together leaders who step up to take on the world’s toughest challenges, locally and globally. The eradication of polio is one of our longest standing and most significant efforts. Along with our partners, we have helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 122 countries. We have reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent worldwide and we won't stop until we end the disease for good.
 
Learn more by visiting: 
Upcoming Events
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Subscribe to our eBulletin and stay up to date on the latest news and events.

Click here to sign up!
 
  Grant recipients
  • Team Blitz Robotics
  • Mount Evans Home Health Care & Hospice
  • Resilience1220
  • Elk Creek Elementary
  • West Jefferson Middle School PTA
  • West Jefferson Elementary
  • Deer Creek Elementary
 
Member Dues Payments
Club members can make dues payments here.
 
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Rotary Conifer News
Rotary Club of Conifer Meeting, May 9, 2023
Updates and Announcements
 
  • Club Service positions available:
    • Sergeant-at-Arms for June & July - Join the fun at the Tuesday morning meeting by welcoming members!!
    • WebMaster - If you would like to be the webmaster, please email Diana P. for information.
  • Diana: MRC is offering day camp in June, so rotary can’t meet in its current location that month. We need suggestions for alternate locations for June.
  • Stan: Provided update on International Peace Conference: Rotary sponsors about 100 master’s degree fellowships for peace fellows at universities around the world. He’ll send an email with details. Dr. Bernice King and Jennifer Jones spoke.
  • Charlotte: Thank you to everyone who helped at the Health Fair on Saturday. She provided an update on the logistics and outcomes of the event. There were approximately 160 attendees. Next year’s location may be Elk Creek Elementary
  • Ann: Ann and Tim need volunteers for Rotary Wildfire Ready for three events this summer in Conifer and Bailey.
 
Upcoming Events
  • Rotary Social - May 20 is a social at Tim’s house from 4-8 p.m. Bring Italian food to share and donations for Backpack Project in honor of Yvonne’s birthday.
  • Bailey Days - June 24 and 25; Tim is in charge.
  • Conifer Elevation Celebration - July 29 and 30; Tim is in charge.
  • ConiferFest - Aug. 12; Ann is in charge of volunteers; please contact Ann or Tim to help.
  • Wildfire Training - If you need information about wildfire or want training, there are two events coming up:
    • May 23 at Evergreen High School at 6 p.m., there will be a wildfire forum and questions will be answered.
    • June 3 at 9 a.m. at Evergreen Fire on Bergen parkway, Jess Moore will explain defensible space and home hardening.
 
Meeting program
 
Mental Health First Aid Services, Sara Bass of Jefferson Center for Mental Health
 
OVERVIEW:
We are a nonprofit covering Gilpin, Clear Creek and Jeffco counties, 23 locations, office or school based. We serve anyone and everyone. Also have mobile kiosks and crisis response.
Mental health first aid: Teaches community members to identify and react. Training options include 8 hour all day sessions, which is an internationally recognized certification. Includes 2 hours of pre-work at home. We get grants so it is free to the community; offered monthly. There is a 15-person minimum for a private course. Mostly virtual now. It’s very skills-based. It is quite useful.
Also offer community trainings 1-1.5 hours; topics include de-escalation, trauma care.
 
Q&A:
Q: How do I know the mobile clinic is coming?
A: Usually find out from school or office clinician or doctor.
 
Q: What services do you offer?
A: Medication management and therapy, counseling. Preventative care through community engagement etc.
 
Q: There are lots of people who don’t have a physician. How do you reach those communities, for people who don’t get referrals, and don’t have insurance?
A: We are not for the private sector mostly. We are partnered with hundreds of organizations including Mountain Resource Center. Our navigation team will explore funding for people with no insurance, no Medicaid, etc. Rarely do we have someone who doesn’t get enrolled using Medicaid or something.
 
Q: Who pays?
A: Several huge fund-raising events and grant funding. 60% of our patients are on Medicaid.
 
Q: What are the biggest challenges? For example, a mentally ill New York man was killed in the subway.  It sounds like this training is one of the solutions.
A: Yes. There is a lot of fear in interacting with persons with mental health issues, and a lot of fear of asking for help. The average age for first aid trainings is 22-30; other programs skew older.
After the pandemic: People are really reactive. People want language for how to handle escalated situations.
We partner with Red Rocks Community College.
The training talks about how to have the person call us. The person may be suicidal.
Comment from audience: I have taken mental health training. You might see someone flaring out, and not know what to do. It will help you recognize the symptoms before the flaring out. It is really good program, the equivalent of stopping the bleeding.
 
Q: How do you help people cope with normal life? 
A: I think that is therapy at its finest.
 
Q: What do you think of this name for our mental health fair in February? “Mindfest: Living your best life.”
A: Members really liked that name.
Rotary Club of Conifer Meeting, May 2, 2023
Updates and Announcements
  • We still need sponsors for ConiferFest, at various levels. FirstBank is in.  5280 is a presenting sponsor. CORE is in.
 
Meeting program
Domestic Violence, Kelly Andrews, Therapist
 
Kelly Andrews is a therapist in private practice in Evergreen, specializing in women’s issues, including domestic violence, eating disorders, and social anxieties.
 
Kelly: One in three women will experience domestic violence. It affects the nervous system, like flight or fight. It makes a person need to be on the lookout for threats; it affects mental health. It damages relationships because the person who is supposed to love us and care for us is putting us in danger. This can affect relationships lifelong.
 
Once violence has been introduced into a relationship, it’s always there even if it is not actively happening. A person ends up expecting violence and flinching even without anything new happening.
  1. Intimidation: throwing things, banging things, abusing pets.
  2. Emotional abuse: Name-calling, putting her down, wearing down over time.
  3. Isolation: Often people don’t realize it is happening. Like putting a frog in a pot of water and gradually increasing the heat, and the frog doesn’t notice until it’s damaging.
  4. Denial: The perpetrator denies that the incident happened and makes a person forget their own worth. It’s gaslighting, meant to make the woman feel that “My reality is not right, because so often I’m told I am wrong.” It feels like one is going crazy. Then police come and don’t believe the woman, because the man is confident and convincing, and the woman isn’t sure what really happened. This can take a long time to come back from. It takes years to rebuild the feeling that, “I am valid.”
  5. Using the children.
  6. Blaming: It’s your fault.
  7. Economic abuse: This is things like being forced to work and hand over the paycheck. Or not being allowed to work.
  8. Male privilege. This is based on history. Men legally owned their wives, had a duty to punish the wife. It’s the woman against these systems. Not all men are violent. A man can make changes and be a huge help to our society.
  9. Coercion and threats.
Put yourself in these shoes. Imagine constantly living in this, and the depression and PTSD that results.
 
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Self-actualization (creativity etc. Not reached by all.)
Self-esteem
Connection
Safety needs
Physiological Needs
 
The woman may not be able to sleep due to being alert, afraid. Maybe she is not allowed to eat certain foods or forced to be on a certain diet.
 
People don’t understand: Why don’t people suffering this just leave? That may mean giving up housing, money for kids, basic needs. If there are ongoing concussions or oxygen deprivation from choking, that can cause disorientation, mental fog. This impedes people from getting help. Perpetrator can be calm, and victim is labeled as crazy or hysteric. Women used to get institutionalized for being hysterical. It may be the result of traumatic brain injury. It’s hard to get out.
 
Women are seven times more likely to die when they are leaving a relationship. My safety plans are three pages long.
 
If a woman hits back, she worries that she is escalating the abuse, or that she had a role. Women internalize this.
 
Be aware that this is going on in our society; and how hard it is to ask for help. Don’t say, “You should leave.” Because it has to be her choice.
 
Ask, “What do you need from me?” Do you want to leave a go-bag at my house?
 
Contact info: kelly@sunhearted.com
 
Dean: This is symptomatic of our society undervaluing women. Doctors telling women you are not having a heart attack, you’re just hysterical, go bowling. How much of this is part of undervaluing people?
Kelly: Yes, it’s absolutely tied together. Women may be stigmatized for having too many emotions, and men are being stigmatized for the opposite.
 
Q: I have a friend with a 2-year-old, and she is still parenting with this person, and expressed concern about what’s happening to the 2-year-old. What are the courts doing in this type of situation?
A: Mom may feel like the child is less safe because she is not there to protect the child. Courts sometimes make the wrong decision. This happens to a lot of women, and it is a huge problem.
 
Stan: There are also kids with both parents who are abusive. It seems like there is nothing in the system to help. It seems like the foster care system is a problem.  Do other societies do better?
A: Often there is a controlling abuser, and the other person lashes back. We live in a more individualistic society; others may have more services.
 
Ann: I had a friend who left an abuser before I met her. Her father had abused her, and she grew up thinking this was normal, and married an abuser.
A: If the nervous system is constantly feeling threatened, it can’t unwind. The nervous system is no longer able to distinguish that one is no longer under threat. That’s why a soldier with PTSD might be panicking in a supermarket.
 
Suzanne: We do now have an interim director for Peaceworks, the domestic violence shelter. Apparently, a lot of things have broken down since it was shut down.
Kelly: It’s great that they take pets. That’s often an obstacle to leaving.                  
Suzanne: We built the pens.
 
Diana: I have been in victim services.   A victim advocate can make all the difference, so victims do not focus on the danger.
Kelly: It’s important to have a victim’s advocate go out on those calls. Women can think they’re not worth anything. But there may be a small light of resistance to that idea. The perpetrator can be very charming. Three women a day die from domestic violence.
 
Rotary Club of Conifer Meeting, April 25, 2023
Club Meetings
 
Morning - Are held every Tuesday, 8:00 AM at the Mountain Resource Center on Kitty Drive.
Evening - The next evening meeting will be Wednesday, May 18th at 5:30 PM at Our Lady of the Pines Catholic Church in Conifer.
 
Announcements
  • We are looking for sponsors for ConiferFest. This funds our grants. Please look for sponsors, and then run them through Marlys and/or Janine. Website is ConiferFest.com.
  • Club Service positions available:
    • Sergeant-at-Arms for June & July - Join the fun at the Tuesday morning meeting by welcome members!!
    • WebMaster - If you would like to be the webmaster, please email Diana P. for information.
  • Mental health and wellness far - Bridget and Yvonne spoke about a plan for a mental health and wellness fair. We want to demystify, de-stigmatize and normalize mental health care.  We’re thinking of everything from aromatherapy and creative journaling, yoga, meditation, therapy dogs. We’ll also have organizations that have resources for mental health, such as Resilience 12-20, Mount Evans hospice, Mountain Resource Center, and a pharmacist to explain drugs. We can have a neuropsych physician to explain how to break a nervous habit, and mental health first aid.
    It will be on Feb. 17, 2024, at Our Lady of the Pines, from 10 to 4. We will finalize the grant application and in mid-May we will do vendor outreach.
    Topics include: “I matter,” and “It’s ok not to be ok.” It will be aimed at adults and youth, LGBTQ, vets.
    Ann suggested a stop smoking unit and an introduction to non-violent communications, but to call it “How to get along with people who disagree with you.” Another title could be “How to cheer yourself up,” instead of “Depression.”
    More suggestions were: Second Wind, UC Health, whole person health, Mind-Body-Spirit connection, love yourself for Valentine’s Day, child psychologist, equine therapy, and pet a puppy. Marketing is essential.
    Diana: Contact Bridget and Yvonne through email through Clubrunner.
 
Upcoming Socials - All are welcome!
 
  • May Italian Potluck Social hosted by Tim Berg on May 20 4-8pm.
 
Guests
Welcome back Carrie L.
 
Upcoming Events
 
Rotary International Conference - May 27-31, 2023 Melbourne, Australia
 
Coniferfest - August 12, 2023 In the event field behind Our Lady of the Pine.
 
Program Rotary Tuesday AM 4.25.23 - Wyatt Yates, Beaver Ranch Community Park
 
Morti: Welcome Wyatt Yates, who is here to speak about the Beaver Ranch community park. He was a CPA, then worked for a private equity firm. He is president of the board of the non-profit that runs the 450-acre Beaver Ranch Park.
 
Wyatt Yates: Beaver Ranch Park is jointly managed by us and Jeffco Open Space. We have worked on a master plan. The park is funded by the disc golf company and the zip line operator and rentals for events like weddings.
 
In the Conifer Area Council survey, people asked for a playground. There is a small one now, with not much shade. The school district told us there are 500 students with physical or mental or behavioral disabilities within a 5-mile radius.
 
Our vision is a new playground, three times as large, accessible to all. There will be little cubbies, places to roll a wheelchair around or usable with crutches.
We did lots of outreach and now have some designs on the website. Now we are on step two, fundraising. The county is supportive, but it can’t allocate dollars from the budget for playground. Our designs cost $600,000 to $1 million. We’ve applied for some grants. This project checks a lot of boxes for funders. We are working with a fundraiser.
We can incorporate shade with the playground structures.
 
County is selecting a design/build contractor for the overall project at the park. The event area will become a parking lot, with the trailhead near the front. The project will improve access and pave the roads. It places most of the parking near the entrance. There will be a road to the dog park and Tipi Lodge, but with limited access. Disc golf will get a new pro shop.
 
We will apply for over $5 million in grants. Jeffco is helping us with grants. Please email us suggestions. Please spread the word.
Jeffco received $1.1 million from the sale of the Broncos, to be used for youth activities. Jeffco is still finalizing the program; and we have contacted them. Also looking at a recreation grant from Covid relief dollars, and Conservation Trust Funds.
 
Q: Will there be an adult exercise section?
Wyatt: Most playgrounds are set up for a certain age, but we want to incorporate features for teens and adults. We will include STEM items, such as interactive items to touch and feel. It won’t be just traditional play structures, because we have the room. We will have swings for parent and toddler facing each other; and merry-go-rounds at wheelchair height, set up so kids can face the other kids.
 
Janine: San Jose Rotary built a park that’s incredible.
Wyatt: Our timeline calls for completion about 2025, maybe 2024. Rubberized surfacing has to be installed during the summer. The actual playground only takes a month to build. There will be two shaded structures.
 
Q: Security?
Wyatt: Two maintenance people and a park director are on site most days. The county has rangers who come in. There also is a ranger at Reynolds Park who comes up quite a bit.
We now get 90,000 visitors a year. About 17% use the playground. We expect that to double. We will use a certified playground installer because there are requirements for fall heights, spacing etc. There could be a 15-year warranty on equipment from the manufacturer.
 
The lodge needs work, like an ADA bathroom. That’s on hold until we do the playground.
I took a year and a half off with Covid, saw my family and realized I needed to make a change. I took my daughter on her first back-packing trip at age 4 and she went 15 miles the first day. I started my own business called Rugged Financial, which does outsourced accounting for companies. His wife is a professional runner, and her company is called Rugged Running.
 
Charlotte commented that she has a family wedding due this summer at the park and she loves the space.
 
Wyatt: It’s one of the most accessible mountain parks in the whole country. Disc golf course is the 11th best in the world. We are thinking we could do a short disc golf course where the current dog park is, so it could be wheelchair accessible.
Janine: We helped get track chairs for Staunton State Park.