Renee Fajardo, Neighbor

Renee Fajardo is a mother of seven and cultural activist who has spent the past 35 years preserving and promoting the Latino/Mestizo culture of Colorado through her work as a storyteller and writer. She has co-authored numerous books in the Tummy Tale series ( Holy Mole Guacamole plus seven others) that preserve family food traditions of Colorado. She has written hundreds of articles about Hispanic artists, culture and historic insights.

She is the co-founder of the Return of the Corn Mothers project a national traveling exhibition that highlights women’s stories from the South West. The exhibition and full color book with women’s stories was featured at History Colorado from September 2022 till Sept. 2023 and now includes over 70 women. Over the past 22 years, she has provided thousands of school children in Denver and with the opportunity to attend free cultural concerts once a month during the school year at the Aurora Fox in conjunction with the Colorado Folk Arts Council. These concerts highlight the multi-cultural heritage of the children attending with an emphasis on Mestizo culture. She also coached Odyssey of the Mind teams, emphasizing Hispanic Culture for 10 years in Jeff-Co and Denver.

She has programmed free and low-cost summer camp programs for inner city youth for over 20 years. For the past 15 years, she, along with MSU Denver JTOH college mentors, has raised thousands of dollars to provide and run a free summer leadership program for Lincoln Park neighborhood kids at La Alma Recreation Center. As a member of the Cesar Chavez Peace and Justice Committee of Denver (CCPJCD) from 2007 until present, Renee has played an instrumental role in organizing an Annual March and Celebration in the community. CCPJCD’s mission is to continue the legacy of Cesar Estrada Chavez through the promotion of peaceful marches and celebrations. As an active member of and promoter for Danza Huitzilopochtli, Renee promotes peace, healing and justice through the use of Danza. The group won the Mayor’s Award for art and culture ( 2016). The spiritual ceremonies that la danza practices are designed to create peace and harmony in the community. She received the Denver Public Library Cesar cahvez Peace and Justice award for Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Since 2010 she has been the with the Metropolitan State University CHS Journey Through Our Heritage program, and program that places university students of color into local high schools and middles schools as mentors. She has facilitated after school program for 25 years and helped place dozens of students into nonprofits and businesses as interns. She takes her university students to the San Luis Valley every year to explore and interact with farmers, ranchers, the mayordomo de la acequia, sheep herders and artist. Her philosophy is to connect our youth to their history to ensure their future. In addition, she has created the Tummy Tale project, a series of 8 books that celebrate the food stories of Colorado's cultural heritage. She wanted to ensure that Colorado youth are connected to their roots and the deep history of Colorado. She was well aware growing up as a child that her abuelos stories of were not going to be remembered if she did not record them.

She also has been on the board of the Colorado Folk Arts Council for 20 years and is the current chair of the Chicano Humanities Arts Council ( CHAC). She has been involved with CHAC for over 35 years. She was instrumental in securing the organization a property in the Santa Fe Arts Dist in 2023. Long before Dia de Los Muertos was widely accepted as an event in Colorado she was a strong advocate of educating the community about the holiday and instrumental in developing Dia de Los Muertos celebrations statewide. She served on Jeff-Co PTA at Thompson elementary ( 1989-2003) and Colorado State PTA( 2000) to provide insight about providing cultural programing and books relating to Mestizo culture for her children and others. She was adamant about taking kids from Arvada down to Denver to visit CHAC and the Mueso de Las Americas and partnering with Denver schools to provide suburban kids with insight about their “primos” in the city.

She instituted a free concert series, open to Denver and Aurora students, at the Aurora Fox highlighting multi-cultural heritage for children (1996-present) with an emphasis on Latin culture . She also coached Odyssey of the Mind teams emphasizing Hispanic Culture for 10 years in Jeff-Co and Denver. She wrote feature articles on Latino artist for La Voz for almost 10 years( 2000-2009) and tirelessly volunteered to help undocumented families gain citizenship. She supported such groups as Fiesta Colorado, Colorado Mestizo Dancers, Café Cultura, Museo de Las Americas, Chicano Humanities and Art Council, Pirate Art Gallery, Su Teatro, and dozens of others through marketing and written articles ( none of it paid). She has acted as a free consultant for more than a dozen Hispanic non-profits and housed over 20 families who were in crisis in her family's home. Renee is a lifetime activist committed to the many causes that promote social justice through peace, utilizing the arts as a means to heal..

She has been a lifetime champion for the advancement of arts, culture, and science in the Denver metro region through vision, leadership, and philanthropy as she has worked tirelessly to support others in their pursuit of brining art and culture to the state. Case in point is her ability to help grassroots organizations thrive. When CHAC was struggling, she stepped in to reestablish their presence in the Santa Fe Arts Dist. When the Denver American Indian Festival and the Lakewood United Methodist Church were looking for a way to promote cultural arts, she wrote grants for them both to create an arts presence in Jefferson County.

When there is an award to nominate an artist for she is the first to encourage their recognition. Leo Tanguma, an iconic Latino muralist, was recently honored with awards from the Denver Public Library, Cesar Chavez Leadership, and the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies. He is also creating his life time master piece at the Magon Flores Academy due to her influence. She has demonstrated a positive impact on the cultural sector of the Denver metro region as she has been responsible for archiving and preserving the oral traditions of over 100 artist with the Corm Mothers and Tummy Tale projects. She has a long history of collaboration and engagement across diverse communities, from Latinx, to American Indian to African American to Asian to European traditions. She has provided documentation for the Women's History Museum in Denver on the impact of lesbians from the 1940s. She has ensured that many Latinx artist have recorded their stories at History Colorado