$2,833 raised by 26 donors
28% complete
$10,000 Goal
The Green House Connection Center is where impacted communities come together to turn environmental harm into healing, and arts into action. Rooted in north Denver’s Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods, one of the most polluted areas in the country, we use art, music, movement, and nature to create immersive educational outreach, build community power, improve health, and push for policies that truly protect our neighbors. (Green House Collaboration Center) (Instagram @GreenHouseDenver)
As one of our partners shares:
“The Green House offers a welcoming space for everyone; where visual arts and storytelling, yummy local food and language access come together to engage scientists, health professionals, community leaders, and policymakers to confront environmental pollution in North Denver as a threat to health and justice everywhere.” – Dr. Beth
On any given night you might find youth stepping up to the mic, neighbors sharing a meal after a clean-air cooking class, danza Azteca group ColorAtlan dancing, drumming and preserving indigenous culture or community leaders preparing testimony for rulemakings that involve air toxics, water conservation, cumulative impacts, and polluter accountability. Our monthly Rainbow Rhythm Open Mic & Jam has become a creative home:
"The Green House holds a monthly open mic/jam session. I've personally found a musical home there--it's where I've met my current bandmates, it's where my partner was encouraged to try to be a musician (we've grown closer by being able to share music together), and it's where I know I'll always be encouraged, accepted, and welcomed." – Kira, Community Organizer and musician
Through Pollution & Solutions neighborhood tours, our SEEDs (Support Engagement and Empowerment of Disproportionately Impacted Communities) program, and deep partnerships with environmental and social justice organizations, local governments and students, we bring residents, health experts, and decision-makers into the same room—and into the same streets—so policies are grounded in lived experience, not theory. (Green House Collaboration Center) (Instagram @GreenHouseDenver)
“One of the most powerful parts of being involved with the Green House Connection Center has been learning how to raise my voice in decision-making spaces, especially around Air Toxics Rulemakings that affect our health and environment. Having the tools, language, and confidence to advocate for my family and my community has been transformative. Getting involved shows me that my voice matters and that I can take part in making my community better for future generations.” – Dawn, lifelong Globeville resident and mom
This Colorado Gives Day, our goal is $10,000 to:
Expand healing and wellness offerings like women’s circles, youth open mics, cultural preservation, and movement classes.
Grow SEEDs so more households have tools to understand air, soil, and water quality—and organize for lasting change.
Support community members to show up in rulemakings and policy processes with childcare, translation, stipends, and prep sessions.
When you give between November 1 and December 9 through ColoradoGives.org, your gift is boosted by the statewide Colorado Gives Day Incentive Fund—meaning your support for The Green House goes even further. (ColoradoGives.org)
Join us in connecting community through arts, advocacy, and healing. Your donation plants SEEDs for a healthier, more beautiful future in GES and beyond. 🌱💚
The Green House Connection Center (GHCC) is a physical community space and intersectional creative hub rooted in the heart of Denver's Globeville, Elyria and Swansea (GES) neighborhoods. Being located in one of the most polluted areas of the U.S. our variety of programs interweave the arts and connection to nature with environmental and public health education and policy work. By connecting art, environmental advocacy and holistic health, GHCC creates opportunities for impactful experiential learning and fosters outlets of self-expression, so our neighbors and communities are inspired to co-create long lasting environmental solutions, social change, improved health outcomes and healing.
The magic in what we do comes from our connection to the earth, to each other, and with our partners– who come together to pollinate and plant the seeds for a beautiful future.
Green House Connection Center Founding Story
I come to you from one of the most polluted communities in the nation—North Denver’s Elyria neighborhood—where residents live surrounded by highways, railroads, a wastewater treatment plant, industrial corridors, and the notorious Suncor refinery, the only one you can drive right through the middle of. Here, asthma inhalers outnumber playgrounds, and generations of working-class families and communities of color have borne the costs of decisions made far from their tables. My name is Harmony and I know those costs well: before founding the Green House Connection Center (GHCC), I spent nearly a decade inside the oil and gas industry as a profit analyst, tracking the billions of dollars flowing to polluting companies while communities paid the true price with their labor, lungs and their lives. Nine years ago, I walked away and committed myself to a different bottom line: protecting our environment, uplifting our neighbors, and creating a future where all children can breathe freely.
In 2019, I joined a grassroots coalition, Resilient Denver, that campaigned for Ballot Measure 2A—a climate sales tax that passed with 65% of the vote and now generates $40–50 million annually for climate action, with half dedicated to disproportionately impacted communities. To mobilize voters, I took to the streets with a New Orleans-style marching band, handing out voter registration cards and joyfully making “good trouble” in Denver’s parks and farmers markets. Soon after, North Denver mothers and neighbors invited me to help organize an Earth Day healing parade through Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea. As we walked with plants, fresh produce, Aztec dancers, and live music, we passed a vacant building with a “For Rent” sign. That space became the Green House Connection Center—the heart of our movement.
Since then, the Green House has become a sanctuary and a launchpad: home to Danza Azteca ceremonies preserving culture, Rainbow Rhythm youth open mics centering queer creativity, community organizing groups advocating for housing justice and our signature Pollution & Solution Tours that bring decision-makers face-to-face with the daily reality of environmental racism. We translate policy into lived experience, reducing barriers by providing Spanish interpretation, stipends, food, childcare, and legal and health expertise so residents can lead in state rulemakings. Our community’s number one request has been for healing, so we created Revolutionary Community Care Classes—trusted, culturally grounded spaces that weave together holistic health, art, and environmental justice.
The Green House was born from resistance, resilience, and radical imagination. We make “good trouble” by fusing joy with justice, marching bands with ballot wins, ancestral healing with regulatory fights. Small but mighty, we build rainbows and bridges between impacted neighbors and decision-makers, ensuring those most harmed by pollution are the ones shaping solutions.
Organization name
Green House Connection Center
other names
Green House Connection Center
2021
Tax id (EIN)
86-3795124
Category
Environment, Arts, Culture & Humanities, Civil Rights, Social Action & Advocacy, Education, Human Services, Youth Development, Community Improvement & Capacity Building
Organization Size
Medium Organization
Address
4700 CLAUDE CTDenver, CO, US
Commerce City, CO, US