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was just the tip of the iceberg,” she said. Other issues catapulted families into the situation where they needed help just to eat. In her art room at school, Bielz was privy to a lot of discussion of those troubles. Families had been evicted, were living in their cars, or needed money for medicine. Kids wanted to go out for basketball but couldn’t afford the shoes.

In 1997, there was a stabbing at the high school. Awareness hit the community like an October snowstorm—the chilling awareness that school violence could happen here. Townsfolk, old and new, circled the wagons and, in a big community meeting, decided that literacy and proficiency in math and science were not enough; that children needed to be schooled in elements of good character and civic engagement. Bielz was active in bringing the nationally offered Community of Caring program to the local schools as a first step in addressing the problem. Then she began searching for a way to establish an alternative high school. Area teens had been dropping out of school to work in the casinos. Some did so in order to live on their own and avoid family troubles. She wanted to re-engage them in their education, for their long-term benefit.

Promoting the values at the core of the Community of Caring curriculum—caring, respect, responsibility, trust and family—sharpened the focus on the need to address students’ and families’ basic needs, Bielz said. “We started crushing cans for a little pot of money.”

Then came an unexpected gift. Wells “Jack” Towns, an old family friend, passed away, having named Bielz executor of his estate. His money went to his relatives, but in her role as executor, Bielz was authorized to donate $4,000 from the estate to the charity of her choice. Jean Olmsted, director of business services for CC-V Schools, suggested incorporation as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charity, and so the local Community of Caring Foundation was born. Gerald Bergeman, a church friend of Bielz and a Teller County commissioner at the time, also had a suggestion. He advised the fledgling foundation that it was eligible to apply for state Gaming Impact Funds, derived from casino taxes and available to Colorado communities changed by the legalization of gaming.

In 1999, the Community of Caring Foundation attained nonprofit tax status and received its first grant: $50,000 to start the alternative school, which opened that November.  As Bielz, Olmsted  and  the foundation

became increasingly known as people to go to for help, the need for a base of operations outside of the art room became more urgent. Bielz also wanted to bring more services to Cripple Creek by providing a home base here for programs operating elsewhere in the region. What was needed was a full-blown resource center. She drew on her connections and rounded up her allies. Representatives of the Salvation Army, St. Andrew’s Church, the Help the Needy organization of Woodland Park, and the Teller County branch of the Colorado Department of Social Services began meeting with her monthly.

In the same timeframe, a parallel effort was underway with the formation of the Gold Belt Communities Build A Generation group under the auspices of Teller County. That organization formed in 1998 to focus on risk factors affecting the area’s young people. The group’s first assessment of risks and needs in the community, in 1999, determined that the area conspicuously lacked resources for residents. Establishment of a resource center became a primary goal. In the networking that followed, Lisa Noble of Build A Generation and Debbie Evans of Teller County DSS joined Bergeman and Bielz in scouting for buildings available in Cripple Creek’s business district.

“We were really fortunate that the Community Of Caring Foundation had become a 501(c)(3),” Noble said. “They were the only nonprofit organization in town, so they were able to get the building as a donation. It was really fortunate, because it could have gone a totally different way.”

In 2001, Reed Grainger, rancher and Realtor with a long family history in the Goldfield area, nudged the miracle along. He told the owners of the defunct Aspen Mine Casino that he knew someone who needed their building and would put it to good use. The owners decided that the tax deduction they would claim for the donation would serve them well, and in the last weeks of the year, the deal was closed. The Community of Caring Foundation took possession of the three-story building with its indoor waterfall and nature murals on New Year’s Day 2002.

The City of Cripple Creek’s Gold Camp Economic Development Corp., interested in the revitalization of dormant buildings, contributed funds for renovation, and the state Department of Public Health, interested in promoting one-stop services shops, granted funds for Ted Borden’s first year as the center’s coordinator.

“We went from crushing cans to a $4,000 gift, to $50,000 in Gaming Impact Funds, to three grants to open up, to this donation of a $2.8 million building,” Bielz said. “From zero assets and a couple hundred bucks to over $3 million in assets in three years. It was a miracle.”