Donna Lucero: The art of community service

by Elisa Cohen |

Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. – Shirley Chisolm

NORTH DENVER –Emails from Donna Lucero get opened quickly at the Tribune. In addition to a request for help for hungry people or struggling students, she always takes the time to add a few kind words, a few words of praise or encouragement. And she has been consistent in this approach during at least the past 11 years that I have been in charge of opening email. When an email or letter comes in from her, it gets opened first. Her humanness, her understanding that other human beings need to feel appreciated, apparently guides much of her work organizing good works in the community. When her recent announcement came to the Tribune inbox sharing with us that she would be retiring from running the Ellen Torres Bienvendos Food Bank at 32nd and Wyandot, we wondered “what is next for Ms. Lucero?” Not surprisingly, we found that more service lay ahead – to her own grandchildren and to all of the children of North Denver.

After working at the food bank for the past seven years, Lucero is going back to an organization she started over 20 years ago, The Northwest Coalition 4 Better Schools (NWC4BS). Unlike Northwest Parents for Excellent Schools, an advocacy group using its political voice to demand more, NWC4BS rolled up its sleeves over the past two decades and worked student by student to do something about it. They organized tutoring squads, summer camps, and provided resources within the halls of existing schools. Lucero will return to NWC4BS to help organize the tutors and analyze the other needs of the local public schools. NWC4BS currently has over 329 kids receiving tutoring from 107 students tutors.

Organizational skills make Lucero shine. At the food bank, she managed to bring order to the many donations required to fill the food needs of over 240 families a week. From the way the recipients sign up to receive their food, to the way the tables are organized to ensure nutrition and choice for those who depend on the food bank, takes an ongoing organized person to meet the weekly critical deadline of having enough food to feed the steady line of those who cannot make it on their wages alone.

A recent letter published in the Tribune asked readers to consider making it Christmas in August in order to fill the pantries during this normally bare period of time. Lucero says one reader of the Tribune responded to one of these letters by always adding a large package of toilet paper to her Costco shopping outing. “Every time she shops at Costco, she donates the toilet paper,” Lucero said as she showed off the home needs section of the food bank filled with clothing detergent, soap, shampoo, paper towels and diapers.

Trish Young, another North Denver community volunteer, praises Lucero’s organizational abilities. “Donna is a master at motivating people to give their best. She handles situations with gentleness and diplomacy. Her bilingual ability puts not only her volunteers but the food bank recipients at ease. She is creative in her thinking and has an open and giving heart for those who are hurt and in need of help. Her knowledge of inner city organizations to help the needy is unsurpassed. When Lochbuie Elementary School (east on Interstate 76) sixth graders needed a community enrichment project, Donna suggested the bean project. The students bagged hundreds of pounds of dried beans in two-pound bags. Donna’s organizational skills walked the students through the project and they became so excited about giving to others that they wanted to do something to help every week. When she told them that their work would feed hundreds of hungry families, the kids cheered. Through this exercise, they learned the value of giving beyond themselves. From there the students organized a coat and blanket drive and a book drive for the food bank. That’s how Donna motivates, quietly, patiently and with love. To work with Donna is to work with the best.”

Young recently documented the loading up of hundreds of pounds of produce from a local farm for distribution in the food bank.

During the past seven years, the Ellen Torres Bienvenidos Food Bank developed ties with the 32nd Avenue Jubilee Center to help ensure that food bank customers receive all of the services currently available to them. Marcia Stackhouse, of the Jubilee Center, greets the recipients for their initial visit. She tells them to bring a bag and a smile to help calm their stress in this difficult time in their lives. She then processes their information and attempts to match the person with any other social services that might help them in their time of crisis.

In addition to getting enough food to sustain themselves through the week, participants can receive after school tutoring, enroll in mentoring programs for young girls, and sign up for summer camps for their kids. They can also enroll in language classes. The Jubilee Center offers a Program for Intercultural Communication and Language Skills in which Spanish speakers wishing to learn English meet with English speakers wishing to learn Spanish. For $10 per month the students engage in lessons and then in conversational practice, breaking down cultural barriers while building understanding of both the language and the people who speak it.

The Jubilee Center also provides community members with blood pressure, lead and vision screenings, mammograms, eye exams and glasses. They even offer a low cost, weekly acupuncture session designed to relieve stress and help detoxify.

When asked why Lucero chose community service as her path in life, she responded, “I’ve lamented not having long-term goals in life. But I love this community, and try to help when I see a opportunity. We have so many caring people in Denver. It’s been a joy to work together for the greatest good of all concerned.”

A North Denver resident since 1972, Lucero had two daughters. One daughter Anita was a flight attendant who was killed in an airplane crash in 1991. Her other daughter Loretta married Mike Ledesma and they have two children Michaela and Arturo. When describing her life, Lucero speaks with the kind of scheduling an involved grandparent knows. By no longer working at the food bank on Thursdays, Lucero says she will be able to pick up her grandchildren from their local public school and help them with their homework until their parents come home from work. Her husband Dr. Ed Krug supports such activities. As the Executive Director of North West Coalition 4 Better Schools, he knows the importance of family support in the success of our local schools.

Ellen Torres Bienvenidos Food Bank’s Most Needed Donations

Peanut Butter
Pastas
Tomato sauce and tomato paste
Canned vegetables, meats, fruits
Canned soups
Toilet paper, soap, shampoo
Laundry and dish detergent
Grocery store gift certificates
Diapers
Sample sizes of anything
Re-usable plastic grocery bags.

Food distribution to eligible residents every Thursday at 11 am and 4pm
2224 W. 32nd and Wyandot
303.433.6328

32nd Avenue Jubilee Center
2222 W. 32nd Avenue
303.477.3944
www.jubilee32.org

First published in the North Denver Tribune