Community
Development

Hi Broncos Country!

We are getting so excited!  The grand opening of the new Teen Center is just a month away!  Things are really progressing now…see all the updated pictures of the Teen Center below!

Also just around the corner is the 2008 Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year Gala!  We look forward to this event each year and especially love all of the kids’ performances throughout the evening.  Our President and CEO Pat Bowlen along with the Denver Broncos is receiving the Champion of Youth Award this year.  It is an incredible honor and there will be many people from the Broncos organization on hand that night in support of the event including Domonique Foxworth, Champ Bailey, Boss Bailey and Hamza Abdullah!  We’ll chat again soon!

Hello Broncos Country.

More exciting progress at the future Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center!  As you can see from the photos, the main registration area connecting the Broncos Boys and Girls Club to the DWMTC is framed in and the registration desk is taking shape.  With all this construction, you’d think the Club’s attendance and activity level would be low but it has been quite the opposite.

The Club has still be operating at capacity most days and just this past Wednesday night, the Club hosted its Youth of the Year dinner that honors the Youth of the Year winners and encourages the kids to take on speaking roles in the formal program.  Dinner — including a special VIP room with waiter service — is served to all of the members, staff and volunteers in attendance including our very own Billy Thompson and Domonique Foxworth.

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As I was returning from lunch today I was pleasantly surprised to find Domonique Foxworth (our 2007 Denver Broncos Man of the Year) at our office–just stopping by to say hi.  Domonique has been such a wonderful player ambassador for our department and the Broncos Boys and Girls Club.  It is always great to see him and get a chance to catch up–especially in the off season.  Otherwise, we have to be satisfied reading his entertaining blog just like everyone else to find out what he is up to.

 We chatted for a good while about the team, the teens at the Club and went over some designs from a local company–Performance Graphics–that will be painting a special mural featuring Darrent Williams at the new Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center.  Our entire department, along with Domonique and fellow teammate Nate Jackson have been working with the teens and Rick of Performance Graphics to come up with a very inspiring piece of art.

So Domonique and I chatted a bit as we looked everything over, he ran a couple of things by Champ over the phone (Champ was in Hawaii preparing for the Pro Bowl) and incorporated Nate’s imput through a few emails and now are all set to move forward with the mural.

What an exciting and productive Thursday afternoon!  Anyways, Domonique says hi to Broncos Country…looking forward to updating you again soon!

Upon opening my e-mail this morning, I was very excited to see the construction bids come in for the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center (thank you Will Bussard of OZ Architecture for your hand in this) and to know that as of January 9th, 2008, we will have our construction partner in place and the work will begin . . . . bring in the New Year.

As you all know from past blogs, this project means so much to all of us in the organization and to the Williams’ family and we certainly know it will have an amazingly positive impact on the young people who will be members of the Center.  Particulary in the week leading up to the anniversary of Darrent’s death, it is extremely important for us to have this positive outlet to focus on and to know that something truly positive will happen in our community from a place of tragedy.

Ed Dwight, the sculptor who is working on the bronze of Darrent to be displayed outside the Teen Center entrance, has started the first casting and some of our kids from the Broncos Boys and Girls Club have been over to his studio to learn about the process.  This is also very exciting.

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Last night at Dick’s Sporting Goods at Park Meadows, the Denver Broncos formally kicked off the holiday season.  Dick’s was very gracious to give $100 gift cards to each of 40 children from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver and they enjoyed a festive dinner and shopping spree with Miles and four members of the team:  Steve Cargile, Domonique Foxworth, Chad Mustard and Brandon Stokley.

What really warmed my heart was the special spirit of the kids.  They were really neat, wonderful young people who were so very appreciative of the evening and the opportunity.  One young man, Brandon, from the Denver Broncos Boys and Girls Club is a Hurricane Katrina evacuee who fled to Houston and ultimately ended up in Denver.  He was so gracious and personable and I marvelled at the thought of what he has gone through and how he is persevering…

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Tuesday, Oct. 16 marked our annual NFL Hometown Huddle program in partnership with Mile High United Way.  This year’s joint service project focused on kids’ fitness as part of the NFL Play :60 campaign, encouraging children to get at least 60 minutes of exercise in per day.

Tuesday was a perfect day for this.  The skies were blue, the sun was shining and about 120 kids from Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver were raring to go as the Broncos and United Way introduced them to the fundamentals of football.

Players Brian Clark, Chris Myers, Domonique Foxworth and Brandon Marshall joined Ring of Fame Member Billy Thompson in hosting five different stations of the Gatorade Junior Training Camp, with each running a station that presented a different football skill for the kids to practice while getting exercise at the same time.

Brandon Marshall had his kids doing the infamous touchdown dance of their choosing after completing his drills.  Will we see any of these dance renditions from Brandon on Sunday?  He saw a lot of good material from which to choose.

The day was capped off by decadent ice cream treats from Cold Stone for all who participated.  That may not exactly support the primary health and fitness message for the day, but it sure brought smiles to the kids’ faces and supported the notion that life is all about balance.

Yesterday was a perfectly pristine, sun-filled paradise day in Grand Junction, Colo., as our organization officially unveiled the newly refurbished Stocker Stadium, home to the 4-0 football team from Mesa State College, four high schools on the Western Slope and over 1,000 youth players from the Mesa County Youth Football Association.

President/CEO Pat Bowlen arrived shortly before 12 noon along with vice president of public relations Jim Saccomano and four of our players — Domonique Foxworth, Nick Ferguson, Daniel Graham and Brandon Marshall – to particpate in the program, cut the ribbon and meet these young aspiring NFL players who use Stocker Stadium (just over 40 games a year are played on this new field and we are so glad that it is now turf and not grass to combat the wear and tear).

One of the real highlights was the marching band from one of the local high schools performing the national anthem to start the day’s festivities.  The Grand Junction community really pulled out all the stops with blue and orange snow cones, Broncos Country flags, orange pom-poms in the stands and a beautiful new granite marker at the flagpole that highlights the collaboration of the Denver Broncos, the NFL and the Grand Junction community on this field project.

It was a real privilege to bring our commitment to youth football to Grand Junction and we look forward to visiting again … Grand Junction is definitely BRONCOS COUNTRY!

Three a.m. came very early this morning and I have a brand new appreciation for the folks who broadcast live radio and live television during the early morning rush hour.

Upon arriving at our Denver Broncos Boys and Girls Club in Montbello 45 minutes later, I was greeted by Rich Barrows, our club director who is a rock star and had spent endless hours overnight making our club absolutely pristine in preparation for our live radio remote today with partner News Radio 850 KOA benefitting the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center legacy project.

At 4:45 a.m., in walks Guy Johnson, a regular Club member and future member of the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center. Guy has become friends with Rod Smith over the past couple of years and his mentor is clearly rubbing off as Guy can be seen often in the end zone. Might I say that I was very touched that Guy was ready to go and support Darrent’s legacy bright and early this morning.

Shortly after, at 5:20 a.m., in walks Broncos linebacker Louis Green and he could not have been more gracious and more focused on our goal at hand — to raise awareness for the Teen Center and thank our community fans. Thank you, Louis.

Once the hour of 6 a.m. rolled around, the Club was just in a frenzy with wonderful community members, kids and so many of our Broncos players on hand that it appeared as though the entire roster came out in honor of Darrent Williams.

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Last Friday was one of the more unique and special experiences our office has had as community collaboration goes. 

As has been introduced in past blogs, one of our special tributes in the works to honor the memory of Darrent Williams is a life-size bronze sculpture that will be in the courtyard entrance to our new Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center adjacent to the Denver Broncos Boys and Girls Club in Montbello.  This project has brought us in contact with a wonderful man who lives here locally but is world renowned for his art—Ed Dwight.

Ed’s first career was that of an astronaut during the Kennedy Administration, but sculpture has always been his true passion.  His works are all over the world, including the Hank Aaron sculpture in Atlanta, Miles Davis in the Caribbean, Frederick Douglass in Virginia and Martin Luther King right here in City Park.  Ed will now ad the sculpture of Darrent Williams to his works and we are thrilled to work with such a talent on this very meaningful legacy project for the Broncos. 

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Last week, the players continued to show their champion sides off the field. Nick Ferguson invited Kyle Johnson and Steve Cargile to join him hosting a group of kids from the Broncos and Owen Boys and Girls Clubs at the premiere of Spider Man 3. Fun, laughter and camaraderie were shared by all…

Domonique Foxworth joined Broncos’ representatives at the annual Youth of the Year Gala to benefit Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver Saturday evening and one lucky couple bought an auction package that included dinner with Domonique, apparently to include a discussion around fly fishing…stay tuned.