Goodwill is opening three new donations centers making it easier
than ever to donate. The donation centers will be in Centennial,
Broomfield and Highlands Ranch and will accept donations of gently
used clothing, household goods and small furniture.
The first of the three new donation centers opened in the Cherry
Knolls shopping plaza, at 6820 South University Boulevard in
Centennial. Goodwill expects the third donation center to be ready
to accept donations by April 27, at 2209 Wildcat Reserve Parkway in
Highlands Ranch.
All three facilities will be open Monday through Saturday from 8
a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more
information, visit www.goodwilldenver.org.
This spring, teens from Highlands Ranch are receiving the Gold
Award, the highest award in Girl Scouts. Kailyn Gramly, Stephanie
Higgins, Kimberly Hoilman, and Torri Kling have demonstrated
exceptional dedication to the Girl Scout Law’s commitment to
“making the world a better place” through their community
service.
Kailyn Gramly, a student at ThunderRidge High School, organized
“Hands of Christ Community Service Club.” Kailyn Gramly is involved
in her church and various other volunteer opportunities because
community service is one of her true passions. This passion led
Kailyn to her Gold Award project, where she formed a community
service club called “Hands of Christ” at Pax Christi Catholic
Church.
This service club raised money and collected supplies from the
church community to help people in organizations across the United
States, such as Share Our Strength and American Cancer Society.
Kailyn sustained her project by integrating the club into the
church’s youth group program.
Kailyn plans to continue with her community involvement and
leadership development in college by joining the Johnson and Wales
University Community Leadership Institute, which involves teaching
students to be better leaders by working with the community and
nonprofit organizations.
Stephanie Higgins, a student at Rock Canyon High School,
organized “Unified Fan Club.”
For her Gold Award, Stephanie Higgins created a new club at her
school, the Unified Fan Club, for high school students wanting to
help the special needs sports program.
Stephanie saw to the club’s success by first recruiting students
to join. She did this through hanging up posters at her school and
talking to her peers. The club ended up with 21 members. These
members mentored 13 special needs players. Stephanie and her club
also worked to promote the games of the special needs sports
program through the school by hanging up posters, intercom
announcements, posting information on the school’s website and
submitting announcements to the school’s TV newscast. These efforts
resulted in 75 people coming to a home game.
Stephanie is proud of being able to pass on her passion for
helping special needs students through the creation of this club.
She feels this first-time club taught her peers something new.
Stephanie says she learned to be more organized through this
project and improved her communication skills.
Kimberly Hoilman, a student at Mountain Vista High School,
organized “Orphan Quilts (Learn, Sew, Give).” When starting her
Gold Award project, Kimberly Hoilman knew that she could do
something with sewing because she is always at the sewing machine.
A conversation with the Rafiki orphanage led her to sewing quilts
for beds in their new dormitories.
There were many challenges Kimberly overcame to complete her
project. She found it challenging to recruit high school kids to
help her with sewing the quilts. However, after she figured out
teens were more willing to work in groups, and the hours could help
them meet their high school community service requirement, she had
25 teenagers who helped her with her project. She feels many of her
volunteers walked away with new basic sewing skills. Kimberly also
feels she learned a lot about public speaking through her
project.
In all, Kimberly sent 50 quilts to the Rafiki orphanage. She
plans to continue to work with her community to invite them to make
quilts. She has already reached out to the Firehouse Quilt group,
Arapahoe County Quilters and several church quilt groups. The
orphanage also promoted their need on their Facebook page and
website.
Torri Kling, a student ThunderRidge High School, organized
“Helping Hand for Harrison.”
Torri Kling’s Gold Award project helped raise awareness about
Harrison Memorial Animal Hospital, a non-profit veterinarian clinic
that caters to low-income and elderly people. She began by
organizing a fundraiser at Ranch View Middle School to raise money
to buy wish list items for the hospital. Then she designed an
educational wall at the Highlands Ranch Public Library to educate
and raise awareness, as well as visited a local daycare center to
do dog and cat craft projects.
Through the course of the project, Torri learned that it takes
continual persistence and organization to run a project, as well as
networking skills. Her future career goal is to become a marine
biologist with a focus on sharks, dolphins and whales. She attends
Colorado State University.
In honor of Earth Day 2011, the Highlands Ranch Chapter of Ducks
Unlimited worked with Cub Scout Pack 730 Webelos II Den 3 to
construct four wood duck nesting boxes to be placed near nesting
and resting ponds in the Backcountry Wilderness Area of Highlands
Ranch.
This community effort started last spring when Highlands Ranch
Community Association employees noticed wood duck pairs frequenting
ponds in the Backcountry Wilderness Area. BWA Supervisor Mark
Giebel approached the Highlands Ranch Chapter with the idea of
building duck nesting boxes for placement in the BWA to encourage
the wood ducks to nest and reproduce annually in the area. The
Highlands Ranch DU Chapter turned to the Cub Scouts, who were
looking for projects to complete their Craftsman Activity Badge, to
help with the construction of the nesting boxes.
To support the request and needs of BWA staff, four nesting
boxes were completed on Earth Day 2011, April 22. The nesting boxes
will be placed in or near existing ponds in the BWA in the next few
weeks. Commonly referred to as “wood duck boxes,” the duck nesting
boxes produced by this community effort help support and encourage
nesting of all cavity nesting ducks, such as wood ducks, Barrow’s
goldeneyes, common goldeneyes, hooded mergansers, common mergansers
and buffleheads. They traditionally build nests in abandoned
woodpecker holes or natural tree cavities caused by disease, fire
or lightning. These ducks will also use a constructed nesting
box.