About the Program
GHCC created the Support, Empowerment and Engaging Directly-Impacted-Communities (SEEDs) program as an equitable, culturally responsive, safe space for North Metro Denver residents and under-represented voices to share their lived experiences, needs, and preferred solutions to address environmental and health disparities. This collaborative grassroots approach centers community needs and contributes to the development of authentic relationships and connections.
Too often, environmental and public health education leaves frontline communities suspended in the weight of their realities—without tools for relief or agency. Policy changes take time, and education alone is not enough. This is why our dual approach as GHCC of supporting immediate needs leads to empowerment and engagement to address root causes of pollution and create community driven solutions.
Too often, environmental and public health education leaves frontline communities suspended in the weight of their realities—without tools for relief or agency. Policy changes take time, and education alone is not enough. This is why our dual approach as GHCC of supporting immediate needs leads to empowerment and engagement to address root causes of pollution and create community driven solutions.
SEEDs Activities
Revolutionary Community Care ClassesRevolutionary Community Care Classes are free monthly holistic healing sessions that are directly informed by the lived experiences and health conditions North Metro Denver residents navigate daily. Each class incorporates holistic modalities tending to the mind, body, emotions and spirit through culturally grounded practices and are facilitated by trusted teachers with
strong ties to the community. By weaving together holistic healing with self-empowerment and the arts, each class nurtures both individual well-being and collective resilience. Participants consistently express how this monthly space fosters feelings of safety, healing, and joy. Additionally, participants share how the skills they learn greatly improve their personal, familial and communal quality of life North Metro Denver. These classes plant seeds for long-term collective change, because each class demonstrates the possibility for neighbors to not be limited by survival but instead how they can thrive together. Join our next class! |
Featured Instructors
Meet Mariah, the creator of Sacred Expansion Wellness, LLC who is a multifaceted, creative who has fully stepped into my practice after being an educator for over 18 years.
Mariah is a Mestiza, a mixed-indigenous person, an intuitive, and a gifted ancestral medicine keeper. She is deeply rooted in my indigenous (Mexica and Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) ways and medicines. She is a practitioner of curanderisimo, ancestral folk medicine. I incorporate herbalism, alchemy, touch therapy, energy work, limpias, smoke medicine, house blessings, ventozas and much, much more into my practice.
She has been trained in many modalities with revered medicine keepers, curanderas, elders, mystics and ritual keepers. She completed a year long apprenticeship with the Serpent and the Veil Mystery School (Nov. 2021), so that she can incorporate Celtic medicine into my practice. I have been called to go to "the other mother land" to learn these medicine ways so that I can help people of European descent remember their own indigenous practices and medicine ways so that they stop appropriating and commodifying indigenous to the Americas, medicine ways.
She is also certified to offer 5NP (5 Needle Protocol) acupuncture. This modality is known to help with addiction cravings, anxiety, stress, and a plethora of other issues. This is a revolutionary practice that benefits our communities.
Mariah is a Mestiza, a mixed-indigenous person, an intuitive, and a gifted ancestral medicine keeper. She is deeply rooted in my indigenous (Mexica and Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) ways and medicines. She is a practitioner of curanderisimo, ancestral folk medicine. I incorporate herbalism, alchemy, touch therapy, energy work, limpias, smoke medicine, house blessings, ventozas and much, much more into my practice.
She has been trained in many modalities with revered medicine keepers, curanderas, elders, mystics and ritual keepers. She completed a year long apprenticeship with the Serpent and the Veil Mystery School (Nov. 2021), so that she can incorporate Celtic medicine into my practice. I have been called to go to "the other mother land" to learn these medicine ways so that I can help people of European descent remember their own indigenous practices and medicine ways so that they stop appropriating and commodifying indigenous to the Americas, medicine ways.
She is also certified to offer 5NP (5 Needle Protocol) acupuncture. This modality is known to help with addiction cravings, anxiety, stress, and a plethora of other issues. This is a revolutionary practice that benefits our communities.
Outreach and Education Workshops
Outreach and Education Workshops are free offerings led by North Metro Denver residents and trusted partners that explicitly focus on livability skills like clean air cooking, how to create non toxic cleaning and beauty products, and how to improve indoor air quality. Focusing on livability skills creates a threefold opportunity. First, this allows GHCC to prompt discussions about environmental and health disparities impacting the neighborhoods in a creative way. Secondly, these workshops then plant seeds of support and empowerment with participants so they can see how their personal action is connected to the collective neighborhood wellness. Third, participants express how they feel a greater sense of hope from these activities and this prompts further engagement in long term environmental and health advocacy.
Love My Air
Participants often express there are consistent barriers to access trusted environmental and health information, especially on daily air quality. In response, GHCC began to partner with the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment’s Love My Air– a collaborative initiative since 2018 aimed at providing communities with visible, accessible and actionable air quality information.
Love My Air created a kiosk for daily air quality data, information on how to minimize health impacts, and sources of pollution available in both English and Spanish. Right now, GHCC is fundraising to install a kiosk at our community hub to expand GES resident access to this crucial information and so the data is further incorporated across SEEDs program activities.
Love My Air created a kiosk for daily air quality data, information on how to minimize health impacts, and sources of pollution available in both English and Spanish. Right now, GHCC is fundraising to install a kiosk at our community hub to expand GES resident access to this crucial information and so the data is further incorporated across SEEDs program activities.
Pollution and Solutions Tours
Pollution and Solutions Tours are a multisensory experience where community members invite decision-makers to better understand the environmental and health impacts pollution causes communities to experience daily. This collaborative bottom up, rather than top-down, approach centers community needs and contributes to the development of authentic relationships and connections. Decision-makers often have limited experience physically being in impacted communities, so these tours allow them to see, smell, taste, hear, and feel the compounding pollution burdens present. Tours are offered in partnership with community and environmental groups often reaching new audiences including: high school, college, and medical school students, government staff, elected officials, and Coloradans who are unaware these injustices are happening in their backyard.
In October 2024, Colorado's State Board of Health and Air Quality Control Commission staff further expressed how the multi-sensory experience as they walked through the GES neighborhood and Commerce City, while they listened to residents' stories made an everlasting impression about the weight of their decision making power on air quality issues. For this tour, GHCC also partnered with Earthworks to utilize their optical gas imaging camera to see methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) leaks invisible to the naked eye within the Suncor CC Refinery.
In October 2024, Colorado's State Board of Health and Air Quality Control Commission staff further expressed how the multi-sensory experience as they walked through the GES neighborhood and Commerce City, while they listened to residents' stories made an everlasting impression about the weight of their decision making power on air quality issues. For this tour, GHCC also partnered with Earthworks to utilize their optical gas imaging camera to see methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) leaks invisible to the naked eye within the Suncor CC Refinery.
As GHCC, we are committed to continuously providing opportunities like these tours for communities to meaningfully share their experiences to influence decision-making spaces. These tours are one way GHCC removes barriers and equips directly impacted community members with the information, resources, and confidence they need to advocate for themselves and their communities. Check out our events calendar here to participate in the next tour.
Air Toxic Rulemakings
GHCC serves as a vital bridge—translating technical jargon and policy information to connect with the lived experiences of North Metro Denver residents so community voice is consistently uplifted to decision makers and their community driven solutions for the health based stands and emission control regulations are implemented in the Air Toxic Rulemakings.
In Phase 1 of Colorado’s Air Toxics Rulemakings, our advocacy led to the identification of five priority hazardous air pollutants including benzene and hydrogen sulfide, which have significant harmful health impacts on local residents. As Colorado prepares for Phases 2 and 3—where enforceable standards will be set— is working with North Metro Denver residents to ensure they are well informed, resourced, and empowered to shape the outcomes of this process. The Air Toxics Rulemaking process includes: document creation, public comment and presenting to the commission. Right now, we are actively creating spaces through Pollinator Lunches, community events, and Public Comment Parties for North Metro Denver residents to be engaged.
If you are interested in shaping the outcomes of this process to reduce pollution and improve health outcomes, then email us or attend our upcoming community events!
In Phase 1 of Colorado’s Air Toxics Rulemakings, our advocacy led to the identification of five priority hazardous air pollutants including benzene and hydrogen sulfide, which have significant harmful health impacts on local residents. As Colorado prepares for Phases 2 and 3—where enforceable standards will be set— is working with North Metro Denver residents to ensure they are well informed, resourced, and empowered to shape the outcomes of this process. The Air Toxics Rulemaking process includes: document creation, public comment and presenting to the commission. Right now, we are actively creating spaces through Pollinator Lunches, community events, and Public Comment Parties for North Metro Denver residents to be engaged.
If you are interested in shaping the outcomes of this process to reduce pollution and improve health outcomes, then email us or attend our upcoming community events!