Saturday, June 19, 12-4, Rolland Moore Park

All Proceeds Benefiting The Matthews House Event

Presented by Veritas and Sponsored by The Wright Life.

Complementary Food Provided by Mama Roni's Pizza.

Tournament Rules:

• 7-12 person Co-ed teams, ages 13-18
• Double Elimination,
• Standard Ultimate Frisbee Rules
• Prize for the Winning Team: Gift Certificates to the Wright Life 

Registration Fee: $5 Pre-registration. $8 Day-of-event Registration More info and registration on event Facebook page

On December 2nd our Girl’s Group had a chance to celebrate the Christmas season in style.

Even though it was a frigid evening, we had 15 young women come out to start off the evening with a horsedrawn carriage ride around Old Town. The ride ended up at Canino’s Italian Restaurant, where the group was treated to a 3-course spaghetti dinner, complete with gelato for a perfect finish.

This was a special way to end the year for our Girl's Group. This monthly group is an important time for our girls to be able to get together, build relationships, and broaden their horizons with new experiences.

Thanks so much to Colorado Carriage and Wagon and Canino’s Italian Restaurant for making this special evening possible!

Last Wednesday, we got together for our November Family Dinner, also known as our Thanksgiving Feast.

Once a month, we host a dinner for youth in our program and their guests. This is a time to just come to the house and have a tasty family style meal prepared by wonderful volunteers in a comfortable space. Each of our youth can bring along family, friends, a mentor – whoever they would like to spend the evening with. Sometimes after dinner there's a card game, charades, or an outdoor activity, sometimes just hanging out and talking.

This month, in honor of Thanksgiving, Ken Smith, one of our Board members and a professor in CSU's Restaurant and Resort Management program, organized a group of his students to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies and topped off with delicious pie.

About 50 youth, staff, volunteers, family and mentors descended on the house for a festive evening of giving thanks!

Periodically, groups from the community come alongside the Matthews House to plan and put on events for our youth. These are great, fun activities for our youth with the added invaluable benefit that they are done on a completely volunteer basis by people who share this community with our youth. No ulterior motives, no one getting paid, these are people who genuinely care about our community and our youth. This unconditional compassion has a huge impact on our youth. For them to recognize that there are people in their community who want to invest time in them not because there’s a monetary incentive, but because there’s a true belief in the value and potential of each individual regardless of past events or circumstances. This is incredibly powerful for many of our youth who have seldom had anyone really believe in them.

This summer, a group from Emmaus Road Church came to the Matthews House to hang out with kids and provide a BBQ meal. This group got to know some of our youth through conversation and some games of bocce ball.

We’d like to thank Andy & Amy Lucas, Marie Evans, Ken Snyder and Wendy Thompson from Emmaus Road for their time and compassion and of course the food they brought to grill out

Thanks also to the following Matthews House volunteers for adding a collection of sides and dessert to provide quite a nice spread of food for the afternoon!

Doreen Miller, Tina Morris, Linda Maher, Gail Follett, Cathy Rotman, Christine Christman, Kelly Mapes, Denise Thompson, Vickie Mitchell, Courtney Craig and Denise Birdsall

On President’s Day several youth, volunteers and staff were about to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day of snowshoeing. The group was given a quick lesson in snowshoeing “how to’s” from our volunteers and then we were all off. After some trial and error learning how to walk in the shoes, we began our trek. The group got along very well and everyone seemed to have an excellent time, especially sliding down our makeshift snow slide. It was not only a good opportunity for staff and volunteers to get to know the youth better, but also for the youth to socialize with their peers in a positive, fun environment and to build confidence by experiencing something new.

Once a month we plan an activity especially for the young women in our program. Sometimes we hang out, eat popcorn and watch a chick flick or head out to try out our bowling skills. Other months we might encourage creative expression by learning some journalling techniques or taking on an art project. The idea is to provide a safe place to build relationships and to give our young women a chance to learn and try some new things in a comfortable environment.

Last month, we spent the evening at the Matthews House enjoying a chance to relax and learn to take better care of ourselves.  Alia, a Certified Massage Therapist from Capelli’s Salon & Spa, brought information for each of the girls on relaxation techniques, healthy eating, exercise and positive self-talk. We were able to continue to build relationships and have some good conversations about taking care of ourselves in simple and practical ways. Each of the girls was able to enjoy a relaxing chair massage and went home with a CD of peaceful music and a bag of marbles that we learned to use for a foot massage.

Thanks so much to Alia for sharing her knowledge, time and expertise with our young women!