As Boulder and much of the Front Range mark the one-year anniversary of the devastating 2013 flood, three foundation leaders – Josie Heath, Rich Lopez and Carmen Ramirez – offer their perspectives this week, setting the stage for other voices from our community to share their thoughts and experiences on this blog in the days ahead.
By Josie Heath
When I reflect on last year’s flood, the first thing that comes to mind is how incredibly connected we all are. No matter municipal boundaries and cultures, as soon as our favorite places to live and work were intercepted by the flood, we were all connected…our lives, interlinked.
One of my takeaways is to continue to see how important those connections are in order to have the quality of life we want in this community – and to be mindful that not everyone is back yet, not everyone has recovered.
Can the artist in a community still afford to live there?* And what about the people who might have had only a small reserve when the flood hit – will they be back? Those absences change a community, and I hope that we will be mindful of those voids. Like the individual pieces of a quilt, it’s only when we have a full sense of a community, when all those pieces are in place, that it really feels warm.
When I think about community resiliency, I know it is also about individual resiliency – and how to move forward, even as we learn from the past. It’s how we maintain a sense of perspective and bounce back when bad things happen. How well do we really know our neighbors, and how often do we check in with them to ask if they’re doing okay?
I’m proud that we at the Foundation were responsive and timely, and that our staff had a direct, supporting role in neighborhood relief efforts. To be effective as a foundation, of course, you have to make good long-range plans – but you also have to be flexible and responsive.
We in the West pride ourselves on our resourcefulness. At the same time, ideals of independence and self-reliance are challenged in the face of disaster. We need help from others. We realize we can’t always go it alone.
As our communities bounce back, we realize even more how much we value the interrelationships we had during the flood. Let’s keep these memories of the power of connectedness as we focus on the new possibilities for the future. Here’s to the power of community!
*Last year, The Community Foundation partnered with Jamie Sladky, a close friend of Martha Kate Thomas, and the Boulder County Arts Alliance to award $23,000 in grants from the Martha Kate Thomas Fund to 10 artists in Boulder County. The grant parameters specifically focus on artists who have unforeseen needs due to special circumstances. In the fall of 2013, those unforeseen needs were all related to flood damage. Since the grants were disbursed last October, these local artists have been able to repair or purchase new equipment – from musical instruments to sculpting tools – and rebuild their work studios. As one recipient said, “It was timely and generous support at a time when everything was spinning [and] the rebuilding had not yet begun.”
