DENVER — The far northeast Denver neighborhood of Montbello has seen change over the years, but many engaged neighbors continue to push for more improvements.
Donna Garnett is the CEO of one of those groups, the Montbello Organizing Committee (MOC), founded in 2015.
“A lot of folks just got tired of waiting to be rescued,” Garnett told Denver7’s East Denver reporter Ryan Fish.
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“This has been a disenfranchised community for decades, and we love it,” she added. “We love our neighborhood, and it's a great place to raise our families. So we're going to take the bull by the horns and see what our neighbors are concerned about, and create solutions for the community.”
Garnett says she moved to the neighborhood just before her twins were born 32 years ago, and that she’s since written a history of Montbello over the last 60 years.
“This is a really diverse community,” she said. “This has been a disenfranchised community for decades… Poverty is an issue. Transportation is an issue. Lack of jobs, or people losing their jobs.”
Nicole Millan, MOC’s Director of Community Partnerships, agrees.
“The thing that makes this community so unique is our ability to grow and our ability to adapt,” Millan said. “Montbello has been through a lot, and instead of just accepting defeat, there have been incredible members in this community who have come together to make change that has been denied to us for a long time.”
Addressing a food desert
Some of that change is on display at the Freshlo Hub in Montbello. Crews broke ground on the property in 2023, and the first phase opened in 2024. It features 97 units of affordable housing across five floors, a coffee shop and a business accelerator.
A new nonprofit community grocery store will open across the parking lot later this year.
“I’m about to become the grocery store manager of the new market that we're building,” Michael Crossland told Denver7. “I’m excited. The neighborhood has been needing more grocery stores. You know, it's technically a food desert out here.”
While stores have opened on the Eastern edge of the neighborhood, the central part of Montbello has been without a traditional grocery store for more than a decade. Garnett says MOC has found many nearby residents have resorted to long bus trips or buying unhealthy food from nearby convenience stores.
“This is a community that has a lot of health disparities, and many of them can be resolved with access to better, healthier food,” she explained.
Crossland agrees, saying the store will help Montbello become physically and financially healthier.
“People are anxious for this store to open,” Crossland said. “They're anxious to have fresh foods. They're anxious to have a market that's bringing local produce and things from local providers.”
“They're anxious about jobs. A ton of people have asked me when we're going to start hiring,” he added. “It comes down to, you know, an affordability issue. Like a lot of times when I'm working with people, a lot of people that I'm working with already have a job, but due to this climate right now, they need a second job, or they need a better-paying job.”
Getting the neighborhood noticed
Other neighborhood challenges discussed by groups like MOC and the Struggle of Love Foundation include gun violence and education.
“We need more and more and more and more and more resources, because it's just a growing community over here,” said Joel ‘Coach Eye’ Hodge, co-founder of the Struggle of Love Foundation. “If you can look down the street and see all these apartment complexes they're building over here, all these high-rises, so those are getting filled up.”
Garnett says another “constant challenge” is getting leaders and lawmakers to prioritize Montbello’s needs.
“We are still in many ways a disenfranchised community… We love our neighborhood, and it's a great place to raise our families,” she said. “So we're going to take the bull by the horns and see what our neighbors are concerned about, and create solutions for the community.”
And these community advocates also say it’s easy to connect with and fight for their neighbors.
“The neighborhood just feels warm,” Crossland said. “Like people actually speak to you here.”
“This community is really well knit, and they're very welcoming,” Millan said.
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