Denver nonprofit tries to resurrect neighborhood association by hosting a garden party

Tucked away in Denver's North City Park neighborhood is a welcoming house that has been bringing the community together for generations.

The Robert A. Miller Educational Resource Center is a nonprofit that kicked off the summer with a garden party. Organizers did this in hopes of getting people together to reestablish a neighborhood association.

“I just needed to get out of my COVID funk by getting out in the community again,” said Jocelyn Miller, the center's executive director.

Earlier this month, Miller and volunteer Karen Derrick-Davis organized a plant exchange party to meet new and old neighbors and get the community together as the organization’s first event of the summer.

They both want to relaunch the North City Park Neighborhood Association to give the neighborhood a voice in the community again. Derrick-Davis said the North City Park neighborhood has not had a neighborhood association in five years, and in that time a lot has changed.

Miller has been part of the community since she was young and knows that bringing people together is the best way to be heard.

“They call me Elmer’s glue,” she said. “If you want a real community, this is what you have to do. Just connect all of the dots”

The house where the center is located was originally owned by Miller’s father and her mother used the space as a day care. When Miller took it over, she decided to make it more of a community center for adults and children.

Lamont Franklin, her 12-year-old grandson, also helps his grandmother around the center while embracing his own passions, like perfecting realism in sidewalk chalk or offering plant advice while naming every plant by its scientific name.

Miller has been running the space for 17 years, and she said the garden in the backyard was Denver's first urban garden.

She said the garden work helps people to connect, heal and grow, while the work gives them something to be proud of later.

“I wanted to have a place where people can come and meet and be peaceful,” Miller said.