ONE Colorado: Day 6

This morning (1/12) we had the opportunity to visit the Capitol in Denver, and get a “historic tour” of the building. Our tour guide was a goofy old man that I am now in love with. He told us that his dad graduated from KU (holla), and also shared a ton of fun facts about the history of Colorado and the politics within the state. We learned that all of the stone and the majority of the other building materials used in the building are native to Colorado, i.e. marble, granite, iron, etc. He said that all of the architecture in the building is original to when the building was first built nearly 1,000 years ago (lol not really 1,000). Our tour guide was really adamant about making sure our group realized that the building was incredible heavy. INCREDIBLY HEAVY. If I remember correctly, he said that the support system for the building itself goes twenty five feet below the surface of the ground. Also, he called Sacha “our lady from London.”

While on the tour, some of us got to witness Governor Hickenlooper’s State address in which he stated, “ As we strive to make Colorado healthier, we believe in equal rights for all regardless of race, creed, gender or sexual orientation. We don’t believe we should legislate what happens inside a church or place of worship, but government should treat all people equally. It’s time to pass civil unions.” Hell yeah, Hickenlooper.

At this point, Audrie was tired and needed coffee immediately. We went back to our favorite hipster hangout to get said coffee and also pretend to be locals. We ate our lunch there, and went over to ONE Colorado around one to finish up a few more tasks around the office. Myranda and I made something like one hundred more buttons to add to the collection, and everyone else did things of a similar nature. At 3:30 we drove a few blocks down to the Denver Public Schools center to listen to a presentation that one of the ONE Colorado staff members was giving on implementing more GSA’s (Gay Straight Alliances) within the middle school/high school level public school system. There were roughly twenty attendants in total, all involved with different schools and holding different positions within the school. The presentation was basically a guideline on how to start a club within a school, and how to be consistent and successful with the program. As a group, we talked about having GSA’s within our own high schools and how they hadn’t really existed when we were there. In the Denver school district, they currently have eight Gay Straight Alliance programs within their schools, and are working towards having twenty by the end of the year.

Around six o’clock, we went back to ONE Colorado again for their “volunteer night,” and all of us got to make phone calls to lists of people that had previously told the organization that they are in support of civil unions. This proved to be not one hundred percent true, because some of us had some unique responses.

Another fun day of learning. LYLAS.