By Scott Babcock, President MNI
It’s been a great year in the neighborhood, and your Mayfair Neighbors’ board is pleased to present some of the key accomplishments from the past year.
501(c)(3) Status. First and foremost, we became an official 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (no small task)! That’s right, your donations are now fully tax deductible, and now we can enjoy discounted mailing charges and can potentially leverage funding for neighborhood projects with additional grant funding as well.
Memberships. This year we’ve seen a significant increase in memberships. We believe that this is a “show of support” for our neighborhood efforts, events, and information distribution efforts via the web and Mayfair Mirror.
Website utilization/Mayfair Mirror. Website use continues to grow, and the Mayfair Mirror remains as popular as ever. The number of website “hits” is up by about 61 percent from one year ago, with a 16 percent increase in unique users as well. We also hear that our value the Mayfair Mirror more than ever, and we are always adding content that we believe will be of benefit to all neighbors.
Partnership building with Palmer Elementary. We fully realize that a strong neighborhood school is synonymous with a strong, vibrant community. That’s why we have actively engaged in reaching out to the school administration and the PTA to further support, fund, and assist in making Palmer an even better school for our neighborhood children. Palmers’ phenomenal new “living landscapes” playground, substantially improved CSAP scores, and dedicated principal and staff have helped turn this school into a thriving neighborhood school.
Community-wide Events. Each of these events increase in popularity each year. Liz Trujillo, Palmer Elementary principal, believes that the increased enrollment of neighborhood children can be at least partially be attributed to the annual Easter egg hunt, which this year featured a “welcome breakfast” at Palmer Elementary. As always, a great time was had by all at the annual Concert in the Park and Wine Tasting at Solera. Next year, we will also do our best to put on another Mayfair Cottage Garden Tour, which proved to be our biggest fundraiser.
Wicked Tickets Neighborhood Fundraiser. For the first time, Mayfair Neighborhood sold event tickets to the touring production of the Broadway show Wicked, generating close to $500! In conjunction with the Denver Center of the Performing Arts group sales program, we sold tickets via our email list, Craigslist, and word of mouth.
If you would like to volunteer and be a part of Mayfair’s Neighborhood Board and be a part of these and many other exciting efforts, please feel free to join us at one of our monthly meetings. We meet the first Monday of each month from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at 6740 E. Colfax Avenue (in the Mile Youth Corps Community Room located at the southwest corner of Colfax and Newport).
We welcome any and all ideas, and could definitely use some assistance in the areas of planning our many neighborhood events/fundraisers, educating other neighbors about important topics, helping Palmer become an even better school, and representing us as a zoning representative on the Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation (INC).
