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Ready to Work front entrance that can be seen from the Moorhead & Table Mesa intersection. |
3 years with Ready to Work Boulder
The Ready to Work Boulder program kicked off in 2015 and three years later it's still here and going strong. There is information circling that points to there being a Ready to Work Aurora around the corner, but with only speculation we'll just have to wait and see what comes of that. Undeniably, the Ready to Work Boulder model works. The Ready to Work program model actually comes from another program called "Ready, Willing, Able" which is a work program established for people transitioning out of incarceration. In remembrance of this third year with the Ready to Work program in Boulder take a moment and familiarize yourself with what the Ready to Work program in Boulder is and what it has accomplished in these three years.
Ready to Work no longer has a farm crew
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Chris showing off the peppers that were being harvested in Longmont by the Ready to Work farm crew. |
In 2016 Ready to Work Boulder had a farm crew that would go out to a farm in Longmont and assist with the work that was being done there. This crew was headed up by Chris and from the planting season until the harvest season, the Ready to Work crew assigned to the farm would be working each day doing farm work and sadly, as of 2017, the Ready to Work program no longer has a farm crew.
The most popular Ready to Work crew is.....Open Space.
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Kyle from Ready to Work Boulder out working on the Open Space crew. |
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Who knows, you might even find a friend on the Open Space work crew just like Tory did. |
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Gilbert's Ready to Work, Open Space crew during the 2017 season. |
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Tory and Kari from Ready to Work Boulder doing work with Open Space.
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This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been out with the Ready to Work crews. If you asked resident of the Ready to Work program which crew they prefer to work on, this is probably the answer you will get most of the time:
- Open Space
- Boulder Reservoir
- Community Kitchen
- Boulder Parks and Rec
- In-House work at the Ready to Work facility
- Shoveling snow
Open Space goes out on the trails with the local rangers, into the mountains to replant trees that have been wiped out, some of the most enjoyable work that sometimes doesn't feel like work, it feels like adventure. You come back each day feeling better than when you left. Morale is high & the body feels healthier even if all you brought was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The least favorite Ready to Work crew.
During the winter you get as many hours as you could ever want going out on the snow shoveling crews. The days can be 10 or even 12-hour days. When residents in the program are sometimes not pulling 4-hours the snow crews look like the high-rollers with the money. The thing that catches people off-guard when volunteering to work on the snow crews is just how prepared they need to be for the extreme cold. Boots and gloves that keep you dry will also keep you sane and enjoying the snow crew work. More than once Ready to Work residents that volunteer for the snow crews have come back to the facility and get sick because they didn't let the supervisors know that they had no gloves or only had sneakers to work all-day in instead of boots.
Things you didn't know about the Ready to Work program.
- Ready to Work Boulder residents don't stay in the facility for free.
- Ready to Work Boulder's first graduation barbecue was held at Martin Park.
- Ready to Work Boulder's program is approximately 1-year in length.
- Ready to Work Boulder has food delivered each day by the Community Kitchen.
- Ready to Work Boulder helps residents find affordable housing.
- Ready to Work Boulder's building used to be an office building.
The Ready to Work Boulder work crews not only keep Boulder clean but the Ready to Work Boulder crews often assist with other local projects as well. For the complete "did you know" list about the Ready to Work program visit this post and be amazed that such a little program can be more complex that it appears at first glance.
30 things you didn't know about the Ready to Work program in Boulder, Colorado.
Ready to Work program resources
The Ready to Work program provides assistance for the homeless or those at risk of becoming homeless. The Ready to Work program in Boulder, Colorado is a Boulder Bridgehouse program that began operating in 2015. The Boulder Bridges Creative is an open community gallery for residents in the Ready to Work program in Boulder.
http://www.boulderbridges.com
https://twitter.com/boulder_j
https://justpaste.it/readytoworkphonenumber
https://boulderreadytowork.imgur.com/
https://binged.it/2Bxafbd
Types of people who might benefit from the Ready to Work program's resources a team include those being released from prison that requires transitional housing, any circumstances that lead a person into a point in life where they need housing assistance, such as domestic violence, loss of family, loss of employment, hardship circumstances, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, mental health problems, lack of services and support of any kind, and homeless military veterans, those seeking housing assistance due to homelessness or displacement of some sort that leads to having a gap in residence, those that are suffering from home homelessness or are at risk of becoming homeless in the near future and require temporary housing and housing referral assistance. The facility photos in the gallery show exactly where you need to go and the building will be very recognizable using those images as a reference.
Ready to Work is Trademark Bridgehouse, All rights reserved.