Left Hand Laurel - Niwot Community Connection: Founders Pat Murphy, Dawn Server and Eve Lempriere

It's morning – the second Thursday in December – and about 50 Niwotians who are over 55 are drinking coffee, eating snacks, listening to two local musicians play their tunes, socializing and – later, playing trivia, at the Left Hand Grange. We're at the monthly meeting of the Niwot Community Connection. It really seems like a great way to connect as well as to build local community.

Besides the monthly meet-ups – often with a guest speaker – at the Grange Hall, the group has organized smaller special interest groups with leaders who organize hiking, line-dancing, bird-watching, art, bridge groups, a men's coffee hour and soon, a writer's workshop, which will be conducted by local attorney Biff Warren, managing editor of the Left Hand Valley Courier. Niwot Community Connection also hosts a meet-up on the third Thursday of each month at the Wheel House on 2nd Avenue. It's called "Thirsty Third Thursday."

This month's Left Hand Laurel is awarded to the founders of the Niwot Community Connection – Pat Murphy, Dawn Server and Eve Lempriere, who all agree that the long Covid lock-down inspired them to join together to build community among older residents of Niwot, many of whom after retirement, after the kids move away for college and jobs, find themselves twiddling their thumbs with not enough to do and not enough local friends and acquaintances.

"In Niwot, the Community Connection is a way we get to know all our neighbors," said Server, a retired land analyst in the oil and gas industry in Denver and one of three founders of Niwot Community Connection, along with local realtor Murphy of Compass Real Estate and recently retired IT manager Lempriere.

"The three of us started the Niwot Community Connection a year ago in October, 2021," added Server, who with her husband Jeff Server runs Meadow Lake Honey on 79th Street – a small business which includes caring for bees and fields of lavender and selling their honey locally.

A few days before the monthly gathering at the Grange, the three long-time friends and Niwot residents had agreed to gather one morning at Winot Coffee Shop in Cottonwood Square to talk about how the idea came to them to start the Niwot Community Connection.

Originally from the west coast but a Colorado resident for 34 years, Eve Lempriere said, "I retired from IT management in June, 2021. I called Pat Murphy and said 'I have an

idea." Server joined the group, now consisting of three women who had long known each other, and by October of 2021, after many meetings together and after talking to local citizens about how they would like to build community among those in the older demographic in town, they launched the Niwot Community Connection.

"We wanted to form a community with people who had similar interests and also to meet up once a month," said Murphy, a long-time Niwot fixture who grew up in a small town in Illinois, where her family was deeply involved in the local community. Murphy moved to Niwot 50 years ago and has seen a lot of changes here.

"We came because Niwot was rural," Murphy said. "There were actually fights in town over whether or not to build sidewalks.," she laughed. "We remember when Niwot was just fields." Now the population is 3500 to 4500 citizens with "many people moving here because their kids and grand-kids are here, and they want to get to know people in the local community," Murphy said.

Presently, there are almost 300 local residents on the group's email list. Some participants are still working and attendance varies at monthly Thursday morning meetings at the Grange. The special interest groups such as birding, photography, art and brew-hopping vary in size, but can be as small as five or six people with a leader called a "champion."

"The only requirement," said Murphy, "to be 50 or over. And to keep in touch besides emails - we have a private Facebook Page."

She added that, unlike Longmont, which has an active senior center, "We have no senior center here in Niwot, which was another reason we felt there was a real need here for building community." "With people retiring and moving here after retirement and - especially with the long Covid lock-down, we have lots of lonely people out here," said Murphy.

The Niwot Community Connection "has also been a great way to find volunteers for activities like the local Bee Festival," said Server, the beekeeper. In fact, Murphy said that recruiting volunteers was an impetus for forming the Niwot Community Connection.

Lempriere noted that "as early as 1987, the sense of community in Niwot started to grow with neighbors volunteering and attending events like the annual Easter Egg Hunt....Niwot has long had some very active volunteers." Murphy added, "We had 900 people this past spring at the Easter Egg Hunt."

A few days later, on a Thursday morning at the Grange, the group's monthly meeting was wrapping up. The group of about 50 citizens, assembled at small tables after snacks and music, had just played "So You Think You Know Niwot," a trivia game led by Lempriere, with questions like: "What is Eddie Running Wolf known for?" (answer: Sculpture), and, "What drew many of the early settlers to the Northern Colorado Front Range area? (mining and farming).

Jim Schaefer, who met his wife while they were students at Harvard Business School, waved good-bye to a friend as did former Left Hand Laurel recipient Karen Quinn.

Then Jim Faulk, a retired electrical engineer at Seagate, who now leads the men's coffee group every two weeks, stood up to say hello. "I'm a Kinetic Artist," he said, passing me his card with a picture of his work on display at Winot Coffee called "They_Have_Landed1." His wife Kathy, a retired medical technologist, said she really enjoys playing Mahjong with a local group of "ladies who lunch out" from the Niwot Community Connection.

"I"m not a social person," Jim added, reaching out to wave to a departing friend in a very social gesture. "But after living here for 31 years and working and raising our children, participating in the Niwot Community Connection has been great for both of us - for all of us here," he added.