Holiday Message From the CEO

Dear Friends,

As I write this, staff and guests are in the kitchen preparing for our annual Community Harvest event where we serve three sisters stew, fry bread, and enjoy dancing and storytelling by our Native American friends. It is our way of being together in gratitude for our community while honoring our namesake, Delores Big Boy. Community Harvest marks the start of the holiday season at Delores and in the coming weeks, we will break bread with our shelter guests, housing residents, and some of you, for holidays that span traditions and cultures. During a time of year that can be especially difficult and tender for our guests and residents, we work hard to provide increased opportunities for community building, joy, and celebration. Where there is an absence of belonging and support for some of our most vulnerable neighbors, Delores continues to step up and provide healing community and pathways to housing for those in need.  

I am writing you today to say that this holiday season, we need your help too. After several years of programmatic growth and increased housing outcomes and stability among those we serve, the organization is facing a difficult budget deficit. Amid the expiration of government funding that has been instrumental in our programmatic growth over recent years, we are experiencing increasing operational costs and a simultaneous expansion of need for our services. So many of you have been instrumental in our success and that of the people we serve so I am reaching to ask for your help in sustaining our life-changing work throughout 2024 and beyond. Today we are asking you to continue supporting our vision of all people having the community of support and housing stability they need to thrive, by donating to our Colorado Gives page by December 5th. 

Here at Delores, we have deep thanks for your ongoing contributions to our community in word, donation, and deed. Together we are changing lives. May you and yours have much to celebrate and be thankful for this holiday season.

In Gratitude,

Emily Wheeland (she/her)

Chief Executive Officer