I moved to Steamboat Springs in December, following my partner to a job opportunity he couldn’t turn down. Knowing this was supposed to be “the big move,” I started thinking about what it would look like to root down, lean into a new long-term version of home, and find my people and places in this new-to-me community. Not only was I thinking about our new physical home, but what a civic home would look like – a place where I could dig in, get involved, and make a contribution to the place that would now hold us.
Before moving to The Boat, I bounced around Denver and lived in eight different neighborhoods in 16 years before spending two in Greeley. In that time, my level of active participation in local civic culture has waxed and waned. Grad school at DU was easy. As students, we constantly talked about the socio-political climate and what that meant for our local communities. We encouraged each other to attend meetings, gatherings, and protests on things that mattered to us. Opportunities to volunteer on and off campus were ample. In a sense, the conditions were ripe to make active participation in civic culture a no-brainer.
In the years since grad school, it’s gotten tougher to remain an active participant. In Colorado, there’s no shortage of opportunities to get involved locally and, oddly, this makes it almost harder. Where do you even begin? How will you know your unique contribution will make a difference? How do you decide and prioritize what matters most to you – and act on it – when the conditions are ripe to keep you distracted, tired, scattered, and disconnected?
In trying to feel more connected to our new community, I started doing some research on the area. By hopping onto Weavers to see where Steamboat Springs ranked on the Social Trust Index, I learned it ranks high for trusting spaces and behavior. This means that there are ample places to connect and people tend to take action to support the community – my kind of people. Where The Boat ranked lower is in trusting intentions, or “whether people feel good about the community.” Trusting intentions are measured by how often social posts and messages in the area express care for others and the community. Perhaps this was the place I could make a contribution: by expressing care for others and the community.
Four months in and I’m reading the local paper, following organizations and businesses on social media, contemplating a board position, and joining various groups on Facebook trying to figure out where I can best express care for strangers and the community. I’ve been grateful to find myself in conversation with others about local housing efforts, water conservation, youth mental health, and workforce while sitting in hot springs or with the couple sitting next to us at the bar at the base of Steamboat Resort. Once again, there are ample places to connect here.
It’s not hard to find caring people. What can be hard is showing up to work alongside them on something that matters to you when you’re tired, when the grocery shopping has to get done, when you’re behind on work deadlines, when the apartment is a mess, when your little one is sick, when finances are strapped, when the people you care about most in this world are seeing their rights stripped away, when someone you know knows someone who has been “disappeared.”
But showing up is worth it. Because on the other side of it is where we find civic love: “the bond of trust and affection that turns strangers into neighbors and place into home” (Habits of Heart and Mind: How to Fortify Civic Culture, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2025). So for now, I’ll look forward to my walk with Arah where we’ll undoubtedly talk about local housing matters, continue to like and elevate local organizations and businesses I enjoy, keep track of volunteer opportunities to care for the Yampa River, and find ways to express care for strangers on social posts.
If you, too, are exploring where you and your gifts fit into the rich civic fabric of our state, I invite you to join us at next month’s Canopy Summit: Reviving Democracy, Reclaiming Civics in Colorado Springs.