 In the spring of 2007, our project focused on the Denver Children's Home in central Denver. DCH is a residential and outpatient treatment center for traumatized, abused and neglected children. As the oldest non-profit in Colorado, Denver Children's Home and its predecessor, the Denver Orphan's Home, have occupied the same building since 1901. This once beautiful Beaux Arts building has become dilapidated and underutilized over the years, and desperately needs our attention. To better support the physical and emotional needs of the children, we provided Denver Children's home with a loving makeover.
ABOUT THE DENVER CHILDREN'S HOME
The mission of Denver Children's Home is to provide a therapeutic, safe place for emotionally distressed children, adolescents and their families to heal and grow. As a result of the traumas they have suffered, many of these children have severe mental illness, such as clinical depression, bipolar mood disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. In addition, many of their young clients come from poor families who cannot afford to have them treated. Denver Children's Home provides care for children in crisis, regardless of their ability to pay.
The staff, doctors and clinicians at DCH are devoted to the care of each child and refuse to turn away indigent patients. In 2005 they served a total of 259 children and their families in addition to 75 families through their East Denver Collaboration. DCH is high quality, cost effective organization with only 15% of the annual operating budget allocated for administration costs. Denver Children's Home has been a safe haven for thousands of young people over the past 130 years. Many come back to the Home years later to share stories of both success and failure, and memories of their time at DCH.
HOW WE HELPED
The Denver Chapter began planning for major construction efforts before the start of the Denver Summit. We lead a team of volunteers to finish up the renovations in the following areas.
Dormitory Makeover
While much of each child's day is structured around their treatment and schooling, unstructured personal time in the residential dorms is important to each child's well-being. Each dorm is a self-contained unit within DCH, and the maintenance of each dorm is essential to the happiness and successful treatment of the children. Currently there are five occupied dormitories and a sixth that is unoccupied. The empty dorm is a prime candidate for a complete rebuild. We will provide plans for the rebuilding of all three dorms, and will complete the first dorm before and during the summit weekend The current layout is cramped and mazelike, so we plan to completely demolish and rebuild the interior. We'll be asking local contractors for help with the major construction, and the summit volunteers will be finishing, painting and decorating the results.
Quiet Rooms
Two rooms will be made over to provide spaces for quiet refuge, for individuals to be rewarded with alone time inside one of these rooms. The rooms will be fully experiential, with sound, light and textures to create a serene ambiance.
Recreation Center and Yoga Room
The current recreation room needs better lighting, new floor coverings, a paint job and some new exercise equipment, all decorated with an energetic theme. We'll add a Yoga room next door, themed for tranquility and calm.
Lighting Replacement
The entire building is dimly lit with inefficient fluorescent strip lighting. We'll be replacing fixtures with brighter, energy saving fixtures. We'll ask for community donations to provide new fixtures and install new wiring, and our summit volunteers will be needed to complete the installation.
Doorknob Replacement
Something as simple as new doorknobs will greatly improve safety and security for the kids. The facility has over a hundred interior doors with poorly functioning, obsolete handles and locks. We plan to upgrade to handicap-accessible lever style door handles keyed to a single master key. We need community donations of the hardware, locksmith help for keying the locks, and volunteer help for the final installation. Bring your screwdrivers!
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