According to last year’s report on agriculture from the U.S. Census, the American farmer is aging. The percentage of farmers and ranchers over the age of 75 grew by 15.1 percent between 2007 and 2012, while the number of farmers and ranchers under the age of 54 decreased by 16.1 percent during the same time period.
Several programs are trying to entice veterans into the agricultural field, while the AgrAbility Project, which helps older and disabled farmers gain various forms of assistance, is helping existing farmers to plant, shepherd and harvest longer.
In Colorado, the program enables Dean Wierth to tend to his herd of goats in Park County, despite his declining balance and vision. Using an electric cart, he is able to feed and tend to the livestock living on the 40 acres he owns, plus the additional 40 acres he leases.
“It’s been a godsend. My balance was just about gone,” he tells the Denver Post about the AgrAbility program.
For 16 years, Goodwill Industries and Colorado State University have run the AgrAbility program in Colorado, helping 538 farming and ranching families during that time. Recently, the federal government kicked in $720,000 to fund the program for four more years.
Wierth, a disabled Vietnam veteran himself, is now pitching in to start a facility that will teach veterans how to farm and ranch. South Park Heritage Association and the Wounded Warrior USA Outreach Program are currently raising funds to purchase land for the program.
Robert Fetsch, co-director of the Colorado AgrAbility Project says, “Most farmers and ranchers don’t retire; they just keep on keeping on as long as they can. Our best course for now is to help them stay active and working, so they can continue to thrive, remain independent and be loyal taxpayers in their communities.”
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Tag: Colorado
How Old Computers Can Make a Lifelong Impact on Low-Income Kids
Between personal computers and the machines in computer labs, there are about as many computers on college campuses as students. But when these electronics become obsolete, what happens to them?
If tossed into landfills, they become a big environmental hazard. But the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) has figured out how to turn them into a solution that helps out low-income students.
The school’s program, Computers to Youth, runs camps for inner-city students, teaching them about life in college and how to refurbish old computers. At the conclusion of camp, each student takes home a computer.
Dave Newport, director of CU’s Environmental Center, tells KUSA that there are 10,000 computers on campus — all of which are regularly replaced. “We can’t give away enough of these,” he says. The program “helps protect the environment. It reduces cost. But the best part is, it empowers students.”
Basheer Mohamed, a sophomore engineering major at CU, can vouch for that. The immigrant from Sudan received a computer from Computers to Youth when he was in high school. Prior to that, his family couldn’t afford one. “Between us and more privileged kids, it was really hard to keep up with them,” he says. When he got his computer, he excelled in school, became interested in engineering and even researched and applied for the scholarships that now are funding his education.
What might he be doing if he never received that rehabbed computer? “If anything, I’d probably be going to a community college if not just working,” Mohamed says. “I don’t want to know where I would’ve been without it.”
Thanks to Computers to Youth, that’s one computer kept out of the landfill, and one mind sparked to great achievement by higher education.
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What’s the Secret to Making a Town More Prosperous?
As more areas become urbanized, Wheat Ridge, Colo., is going back to its roots. Literally.
At the end of the 1960s, Wheat Ridge turned its focus from its agricultural origins to residential and commercial growth. But 50 years later, it realized that farming was the backbone of the town for a reason. So, starting in July 2011, the town amended its comprehensive plan to make urban agriculture a central part, reports CityLab.
Some of the measures include allowing urban gardens (including for-profit farms), farmer’s markets and produce stands in every zoned area, as well as making the process of starting a farm as easy and efficient as possible. One way? Eliminating urban-garden permits.
“We wanted to move the city forward and encourage investment, but we didn’t want to lose its unique charm, which is largely based on our agricultural history,” Ken Johnstone, director of community development for Wheat Ridge, explains to City Lab. “We weren’t the only city getting grassroots interest in local farming and food production. We saw it as an opportunity to brand ourselves.”
And with these changes, the town’s actually seeing a boost in residents as people are coming back to the area to farm. In 2013, Dan Graeve and wife Christa moved to Wheat Ridge with their two friends Adam Slack and Shannon Dils to start True Roots farm. Although they didn’t have business or agriculture experience, it wasn’t a problem as city planners were there to help them every step of the way.
“We contacted the city as a place to start,” Graeve says. “At that point we didn’t even have a model per se. [The city planner] was willing to just sit down with us and talk about whether there was any city-owned property, or other space [for a farm].”
As Wheat Ridge continues to attract residents, its plan could be an inspiration for others.
“We’ve gotten a lot of attention for it, which is a good thing,” Johnstone says. “I don’t know if it’s a fad or not, but it [works for Wheat Ridge.]”
As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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Why is This Man Making Homeless People Do Push-Ups?
Boot-camp workouts, which include grueling regimens of push-ups, squats, sprints and more, are a privilege usually reserved for people of means. But in Denver, one volunteer is bringing the benefits of good health and strenuous exercise to homeless people.
Mark McIntosh, who was a sports reporter for many years on Denver’s CBS affiliate and currently works as a life coach and motivational speaker, is leading homeless men in workouts that he hopes will be life-changing.
McIntosh calls his boot-camp program A Stronger Cord. Participants once lived at Denver Rescue Mission’s Lawrence Street Shelter and through good behavior, earned individual rooms at a former motel turned shelter, The Crossing.
On the night that Jennifer Brown of the Denver Post visited them, they were grinding out sit-ups and running laps. “A sweat a day keeps the doctor away,” McIntosh tells Brown, “and the surgeon and the shrink.”
Several of the participants say that exercise helps them ward off depression and prevents them from returning to drugs and alcohol. Gulf War veteran Darwin Ben agrees. He has suffered PTSD since serving, and he says, “My life has been an up-and-down roller coaster ever since.”
McIntosh continues, “The physical piece is important — you get the endorphins going, but it’s also the teamwork. All men, when we are bummed out about life, we tend to go into our caves. This brings us all together.”
A Stronger Cord seeks volunteers to help lead the workouts indoors and outdoors (yes, even in the winter) near The Crossing and in downtown Denver. McIntosh hopes to expand the program through city funding, donations and more volunteers.
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How to Bridge the Digital Divide
While many claim that devices are causing people to interact less, here’s a great example of technology bringing people together.
Once a week, 16-year-old Mikinly Sullivan travels to the Frasier Meadows retirement home in Boulder, Colo., to visit her friend, 89-year-old Kevin Bunnell. The two were connected through Cyber Seniors, a program that pairs high school volunteers with elderly individuals that need help navigating new-fangled technology.
The program wants to ensure that seniors are learning to use computers — not just letting the young people figure things out for them — so as a rule, the elder person’s fingers must be on the keyboard the whole time, while the teenager coaches them through maneuvers.
Bunnell is a poet, and Sullivan has been helping him organize the many poems he’s written over his lifetime. “I love listening to the stories from when he was young,” Sullivan says to PBS News Hour. In exchange, Bunnell wrote a poem in honor of the Cyber Seniors program.
Another senior benefitting from the program is Bruce Mackenzie. “I’m taking a class at the university called Hip-Hop 101,” he says, “And I didn’t know how to listen to the rap songs that are on hip-hop. And Ryan [a teen participant] showed me how to go to YouTube, which I never knew anything about. So I go to YouTube now and I can listen to all these rap songs for my class.”
While the program’s ultimate mission is to help seniors get online, Jack Williamson, who runs Cyber Seniors, says that it “helps build relationships between young people and seniors, which is rare in this culture today.”
As one student volunteer tells PBS News Hour, “I’m learning a lot from them and they’re learning from me. I have actually found through this that I think I like older people more than I like younger people.”
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Ancient Native American Ceremonies Help Soldiers Overcome PTSD
You’re probably not aware, but about 1 percent of veterans are of American Indian or Native Alaskan descent.
While this group is just a tiny percentage of our Armed Forces, Native American veterans are two to three times as likely to experience PTSD as white veterans, says Dr. Spero Manson, Ph.D., who leads the Centers for American Indian and Native Alaskan Health at the University of Colorado’s School of Public Health.
Why does this group suffer mental anguish more than others? Manson, who is a member of the Pembina-Chippewa tribe, thinks it’s because Native Americans are more likely to spend more time in combat than soldiers of other ethnicities. “The greatest predictor of trauma among veterans is, in fact, exposure to combat,” he tells Colorado Matters.
Although the issues faced by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are unique, Manson believes this problem isn’t new, extending back for as long as there have been warriors. “The returning warriors of that time came back to their local villages and communities exhibiting many of the same symptoms that veterans today, who have seen combat, do,” he says. “They’re irritable, quick to fight, they distance themselves from others. They’re very difficult to reintegrate into their communities.”
Manson believes the ancient ceremonies tribes developed to address these problems can be helpful to today’s soldiers. He cites the Lakota Wiping of Tears, “where tears are symbolically brushed from the cheeks,” as being helpful.
Manson’s own son returned troubled after serving in the Marine Corps and finally got back on his feet through a mixture of tribal and traditional medical interventions. “We just have to figure out how to…support them in the process,” Manson says.
MORE: Can Ancient Native American Traditions Heal Today’s Vets?
Wanted: A Few Good Veterans to Keep the Roads Clear of Snow
Every year, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has to hire dozens of seasonal workers to drive plows and operate heavy machinery to keep the roads clear once the snow starts flying. This winter, they have a special group of people in mind to fill 60 vacant positions: veterans.
“Veterans often finish their military service with the types of skills we’re looking for,” CDOT deputy executive director Scot Cuthbertson tells CBS Denver in a statement. “We encourage veterans to make appointments and talk to us about our seasonal openings. We think we may have some good matches out there.”
CDOT held three open houses just for veterans to answer questions and make hires — including snowplow drivers, heavy equipment mechanics and communications experts — before Colorado’s heavy snow season hits.
This winter, you may have an extra reason to thank a veteran.
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The Harry Potter Producer That Gave Up The Movie Business to Help Families with Sick Children
While working as an associate producer on the film “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” Paula DuPré Pesman received a phone call from an organization that grants wishes to critically ill kids. The child’s wish? To see the movie about the boy wizard before she died.
Presman’s initial reaction was that it was impossible. But in part because her own husband, Curt, was struggling with colon cancer at the time, she was determined to make it happen.
“We figured out a way to do a rough cut,” Pesman tells the Denver Post. “We got a screening room in San Francisco. We did a screening for this little girl, Gillian. Her picture hangs over my desk…She shot me out of a cannon, basically. It became my reason to go to work.”
After granting that wish, Pesman couldn’t stop there. She continued to make the dreams of sick kids come true with visits to the Harry Potter film set and screenings. Once, she mentioned to a sick child’s father that he must have a lot of friends helping him out. “He said, ‘Are you kidding?'” Pesman recalls. “We’re living a parent’s worst nightmare. People don’t know what to say or do, so they don’t do anything.”
So Pesman made helping such kids and their families her full-time mission. “I was walking away from something I loved. I loved working on films. I loved supporting the team. And I worked 16 years for the nicest company. You don’t walk away from a perfect job.”
But Pesman did, leaving the film industry to start There With Care out of her home in Boulder, Colo. The nonprofit takes care of every conceivable need that families of critically-ill children struggle with.
Volunteers make sure these families’ refrigerators are stocked and that they don’t run out of toilet paper. They deep-clean homes for kids coming home from the hospital with weakened immune systems, and they drive families to doctors’ appointments so the parents can provide comfort during the ride. Most importantly, the volunteers listen at a time when friends can turn away out of fear and shock about the situation.
Pesman runs the nonprofit full time — but she hasn’t completely stayed away from movie-making. She’s worked with Colorado filmmakers on such projects as “The Cove,” the 2009 Oscar nominee for best feature documentary, and last year’s Emmy-winning “Chasing Ice.”
“I was a control freak as a producer,” Pesman says. “I had to get everything done, everything perfect. I don’t do that anymore. I think Curt being sick changed all of that for me. I didn’t have a choice anymore. I saw how quickly things could change and be taken from you. That’s probably why I love documentary so much. You think you’re making this movie and you’re not. You’re making this one.”
MORE: Why Every American Should Read Harry Potter
This 85-Year-Old Knitter Churns Out Hats to Help Homeless Veterans
Seven years ago, 85-year-old Orville “Mark” Skattum, who served in the Army National Guard during the Korean conflict, took up a new hobby: knitting.
He got the idea after seeing a friend work on a loom. After getting one of his own, he started knitting hats to give to family and friends at Christmas. Then, he realized that homeless veterans could use some extra warmth.
“I feel sorry for the ones that have a hard time. They’re homeless and out of work,” he tells Kevin Simpson of the Denver Post. “The least I can do is help out a little.”
Skattum began knitting about five hats a week, each with a tag that reads, “Made by a Vet, for a Vet…God bless.” Whenever he has completed 50 hats, he donates them either to his church or to the Denver V.A. hospital to be given to needy vets. He estimates he’s knitted 1,200 hats.
Last year, his daughter Karla Tillapaugh joked with her father about getting a booth at Holiday ManCraft, a hipster-delighting fair that has been showcasing the wares of crafty men — many of them professional artisans — since 2000. She didn’t realize he’d taken her seriously until several months later, when he told her that he’d knitted 150 caps for his booth. Tillapaugh quickly contacted the craft fair organizers to see if her dad could join.
ManCraft founder Stu Alden immediately accepted him. “How can you say no to that?” he tells the Denver Post. “There was something really touching that he got excited about it.”
Skattum will be selling his specialty hat, called Orville’s Bucket, when Holiday ManCraft takes over a Denver VFW Post on December 5 and a Boulder, Colo., American Legion on December 6.
Not surprisingly, Skattum plans to donate any proceeds to charity.
MORE: How One Veteran Discovered the Healing Power of Art and Made it His Mission to Share with Others
This Immigrant Turned Fast-Food Franchise Owner Has Been Serving Free Thanksgiving Dinner for 23 Years
On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, the line out of a McDonald’s in Denver extended out the door.
The people weren’t clamoring for Big Macs, however. They were there to partake in a complimentary Thanksgiving feast that the owners of the franchise, Geta and Janice Asfaw, have been serving to the poor of their neighborhood for 23 years.
Originally, the Asfaws cooked up a meal consisting of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing for the area’s senior citizens, but lately, they’ve become even more generous. The event now includes a presentation of scholarships to high school students and a bike giveaway for elementary schoolers.
Last year, the Asfaws distributed 250 bicycles to low-income children nominated by their teachers for academic achievement or persistence in the face of obstacles. (Through the years, the Asfaws have united with other Denver restaurant franchise owners and nonprofits to distribute 1,700 children’s bikes.) Last year, Geta told Austin Briggs of the Denver Post, “We want them to hear that it doesn’t matter where they are today, it’s where you are 20 years from now that matters.”
Geta knows a few things about how to bring about personal transformation through hard work. He left Ethiopa to attend college in America in 1972, and after a coup in 1974 made it impossible to return home, he stayed in the U.S., earned his college degree and eventually became a citizen. In 1991, he bought his first McDonald’s franchise and now owns eight of them.
Last week, Geta told the Denver Post, “We’ve always felt that as local businessmen we should give back to the community — not just take the money. That’s what we said at the start. If we’re going to (be here), we’re going to do that. Even when we didn’t have much, we always felt it was our responsibility.”
So if you ever find yourself in Denver with a hankering for French fries, we can’t think of nicer people to get your craving satisfied by.
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