Alice Kelly, Blockworker since 1971
This March, while delivering the Greater Park Hill News, Alice bumped into brand-new neighbors across the alley from her home who were still in the process of moving in. She was able to meet them, hear their story and welcome them to the neighborhood.
“[Being a blockworker] is a wonderful way to get to know people and connect,” said Kelly.
A native Iowan, Alice fell in love with Colorado when she came here during college in the summer of 1963 to wait tables at the Teller House in Central City. After college, she was recruited back to Colorado to teach by Jefferson County Public Schools. After stints in South Bend, Indiana and Portland, Oregon with her husband, Terry, the two settled into their house on Eudora in 1970. She taught a while longer before staying home with the kids.
“I was a stay-at-home mom, but community activism was really important to me,” she said.
In the early 1970s, Alice was a member of the Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. board and involved with the League of Women Voters. She became chair of the LWV’s education committee in the fall of 1973, shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Keyes v. School District 1 case, which mandated that Denver desegregate its schools.
The following spring, Alice worked to create peaceful school segregation through the League’s involvement in the community process, which involved myriad community organizations including the city chambers, the scouting organizations, the AFL-CIO, PTAs, the Junior League, the registered neighborhood organizations, and churches, to name a few.
“That was community organization by fire,” said Alice of the learning experience.
The groups came together under People Let’s Unite for Schools, a nonprofit housed at the Holy Redeemer on 26th Avenue and Race Street. The organization worked tirelessly on communication efforts created to give families perspective on the issue of desegregation. By the time September came around, families were well-informed and the desegregation happened peacefully.
A year or so later, Alice caught wind that Kaiser would move its Franklin facility to Alameda and Havana. So Alice mobilized the Park Hill babysitting coop – one-third of whom belonged to Kaiser – by calling them and inviting them to come over with their kids for coffee, juice and graham crackers, and “let’s figure out a way.” Almost every family came.
Together, the group identified the tasks and divided the workload. They decided to reach out to the major subscribers of Kaiser, all of which passed resolutions supporting Franklin in its current location. The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News wrote editorials to the same effect. At a large community meeting held at St. Thomas Episcopal with Kaiser, Alice’s group presented data on transportation times to the proposed facility that they had collected themselves by riding public transit. At her instigation, Kaiser’s Franklin facility stayed put.
Alice became president of the LWV from 1989 to 1991, then turned her attention to the redevelopment of Stapleton for the next twenty years. She was appointed to the Stapleton Tomorrow committee by Mayor Peña. Next, Mayor Webb appointed her to two terms on the Stapleton Development Corporation, and Mayor Hickenlooper reappointed her to a third term.
As she describes it, Stapleton Tomorrow was the concept phase for the 4,700 acres of the Stapleton property. The volunteer members worked to get school and community input and communicate their ideas to the greater public. Next, at the Stapleton Development Corporation, they worked on the master plan – the “Greenbook,” it was called then – which went through all the steps of City Council with feedback from Denver, Aurora and Commerce City. In her final term, she served as the chair of the Stapleton Development Corporation, working with master developer, Forest City.
Years into the process, Alice started to feel like she would never see a house in Stapleton. She vividly remembers the day she saw the first one.
“‘This must be a mirage,’” Alice had thought to herself, and pulled over her car. “There it was, off in the distance, the first house had gone vertical and I was so thrilled.”
Over the last forty-plus years, Alice has shared her blockworker responsibility with her family and sometimes her young neighbors. Her three children helped her when they were young, then went on to deliver the paper solo for several years. These days, her seven grandchildren, ages 2 to 12, sometimes help her on her route when she and her husband take care of them on Wednesdays.
“Kids are great paper deliverers – they love to do it!” Alice said.
The blockworker beat highlights “blockworkers” – residents who volunteer to deliver the Greater Park Hill News to their neighbors each month. There are currently around 370 blockworkers delivering to 408 of the 516 residential blocks that comprise Greater Park Hill. If your block isn’t receiving the newspaper, consider volunteering. For more information, contact Bernadette Kelly at newspaper@greaterparkhill.org.