It didn’t take a genius to see what was missing. It didn’t take a high paid consultant either. It took a handful of college students doing a deep dive into Bucket List Community Café for a capstone strategic communications class at CU Denver to notice we didn’t have a mission statement. After two years of posting stuff and hoping things sticked we were finally forced to ask ourselves “where are we going?” Are we a blog? Are we a community journalism site? Are we an aggregator? What was the purpose of this labor of love that started as musings about North Denver and ended up being so much more? How, the students wondered, can we help you grow if you don’t have a clear purpose? Ouch! Time to take a step back and take a good look at what we wanted to be.
Bucket List Community Café has a unique niche at the intersection between journalism and community. It’s your North Denver online hub for information, inspiration and interaction. We cover news, issues, culture, events, food, fun and more. Everyone has a story and it doesn’t have to be newsworthy to be important. Bucket List Community Café brings people together by sharing these stories and engaging our neighbors across North Denver. We are friendly and positive and lean towards social justice. We support community journalism and collaborate with non-profits and small businesses. We are hyperlocal and strive to represent the diverse voices from different neighborhoods of North Denver.
We care about all people who live in our community including those who are homeless, food insecure, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and those with different abilities. We do journalism by walking around. We believe community news is a part of an ecosystem and stories rise from the grassroots: our homes, streets and neighborhoods. Our concerns and activism reflect a response, not just in our community, but to the larger issues we face as a state and nation. We are all in this together.
Bucket List Community Cafe believes journalism is stronger when it is community inspired and supported. We believe that it is important to engage young journalists and communicators, and mentor them on their journey. We believe it is important to pay forward and give back. We work to be accessible on our daily Facebook feed, Instagram, Twitter, our website at http://bucketlistcommunitycafe.com and through our monthly newsletter. There are no paywalls, subscriptions, memberships or ads. Everyone is welcome at Bucket List Community Café.
You know what? Once we had this mission statement and a record of accomplishments that we were able to detail we started getting more attention. Those we had tried to connect with started noticing us and after two years of not being sure where we were going, we now have a clear direction. That doesn’t mean we can’t change course. We evolve every day, but we are on our way. Now we are one of 26 community news sites in the state chosen by Colorado News Collaborative and Colorado Media Group to receive a $5000 matching grant. Between November 30 and December 31, if you contribute to Bucket List Community Café it’s like you’re giving twice.
If you value hyperlocal journalism, if you want to know what’s going on in your neighborhood and in those around you, if you want to know where to go and what to do and how decisions made by others are affecting you, please help us. If you want to see original storytelling from the grassroots, if you want to live in a rich ecosystem of news and information and have an online home in the community that makes a difference, please help us. People in North Denver are involved and generous. As you consider your year-end giving, please help support our mission by contributing to Bucket List Community Café so we can continue our commitment to information, inspiration and interaction.
