By Miriam Brown ’21
For the next three months, Arielle Gordon ’21 will be sorting through crates of documents in the Collaborative for Community Engagement’s basement.
“I’m excited,” she says. “I don’t know what sort of hidden gems we have.
The crates contain memos from meetings, newspaper clippings, undated photographs, and other documents belonging to the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for issues of peace, justice, and sustainability. In celebration of the organization’s 40th anniversary, Gordon will be working with other CC students to read, organize, preserve, and share 40 years of archived documents with the community.
Gordon is a member of the Community Engaged Leaders program, a three-year program designed by the CCE to integrate civic leadership into students’ everyday lives, and this project will serve as one of the final pieces of the program — her capstone project.
But for Gordon, the project is more than a short-term project. She hopes that students will not only use this project as an opportunity to engage others about the work and history of the PPJPC, but also use it as a starting point for many future collaborations with the PPJPC.
“It’s important to help a community partner that’s done so much for the Springs … [and] to give students who are interested in history or some sort of social work the opportunity to engage with a community partner,” Gordon says.
Students interested in the PPJPC archival project can contact Gordon at a_gordon@coloradocollege.edu.
