Amanda Blaurock is executive director of the Village Exchange Center, formed in January 2017, to serve immigrants and refugees in the Aurora/Denver metro area.
By offering a community center and multi-faith worship space, the Center celebrates cultural and religious diversity by creating an inclusive environment where residents from all backgrounds interact, share and develop together.
The Village Exchange Center offers organic and co-located programs, informational services and cultural activities, and aspires to become a “one-stop shop” supporting integration, engagement and empowerment of newly arrived residents.
In this Q&A, Amanda talks about the Village Exchange Center’s creation story, and her unique combination of legal expertise and entrepreneurship in developing a solid foundation for the Center.
What is your role and primary charge at the Village Exchange Center?
I am the executive director and chair of the board. We received a donation of four lots of land from St. Matthew Lutheran Church, a member of the ELCA, in January 2017. The congregation had been looking at how to handle the universal issue of being a shrinking congregation in a changing demographic for a long time. They interviewed multiple nonprofit organizations and unanimously voted to donate the space to Village Exchange Center, thus, allowing the congregation to leave a legacy and serve north Aurora’s refugee and immigrant communities. They will worship here in perpetuity, and St. Matthew members are part of our staff.
At the time of the donation, I was a general counsel working on a landscape of legal issues, and also served as an entrepreneur and investor in a hotel in Cartagena, Colombia. I am still involved in those endeavors, but with the donation of land, I have shifted my focus to building the Village Exchange Center organization. Late 2016, I started the process of creating an LLC and securing 501c3 nonprofit status for the organization.
Recently, we completed the merger with the Aurora Welcome Center. We are working with the City of Aurora and the Aurora Public School District to create different partnerships and methods of fund-raising. We’ve also been busy with planning programming and bringing in staff.
What community needs are served by the Village Exchange Center?
Since opening on May 1, the Village Exchange Center has sought to be a one-stop shop that offers multi-faith and multi-cultural community services to immigrants and refugees in the Aurora and Denver metro area. The idea for Village Exchange Center is to create a space that allows for a celebration of religious and cultural diversity. We respect and honor diversity in both areas.
One of every five residents of Aurora is foreign-born and about 80 percent of refugees in Colorado live in Aurora. Village Exchange Center is located one block from East Colfax and Havana, the center of the refugee and immigrant populations in our city.
The needs served by Village Exchange Center range from citizenship classes, English as a Second Language classes, after-school programming, and more. We are also in the process of developing empowerment programs for newly arrived people in our community, such as youth programs, vocational training, and entrepreneurship programs.
What are the key offerings of the Village Exchange Center?
Most of the people we serve come from strong religious backgrounds. Many are here from war-torn countries where conflicts were based on religious oppression. To ignore and not celebrate that aspect of diversity is a disservice to the community.
We have a large worship space where we provide multi-faith services that includes different congregations. We have Bhutanese Nepali, Congolese, and people from Myanmar who worship in the space. We are also now in conversations with a Muslim congregation that is seeking space.
We take this process of engagement seriously and delicately. Our Director of Multi-Faith Services, was a monk for 10 years, and is the pastor of St. Matthews Lutheran Church. He has a great background of imparting kindness, love and acceptance of all people.
We’re continuing to look at different organizations to partner with. We currently have two programs that are “native” to the Village Exchange Center: the Natural Helpers Program and the Youth Wellness Program. We offer the Natural Helpers program through a partnership with the City of Aurora. Twice a year, we provide training for community leaders to learn about resources available to immigrants and refugees. We offer a three-day intensive class that brings service providers to present to our natural leaders what they do, and how they do it. As leaders, they bring the information and knowledge about resources back to their communities.
Our Youth Wellness Program provides workshops that promote a healthy lifestyle, like healthy eating and outdoor trips. The program also provides tutoring, help with homework, and other wellness activities. We have hired Amy Buchanan, a former employee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as our Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services, to develop and implement this program.
Another program we are developing is a vocational training program around food preparation, and catering services. One of our first capital campaigns will be to activate the large kitchen downstairs into a commercial kitchen. We hope to provide training to community members around cooking and food preparation skills, and serve a meal a day to anyone who needs it.
We want to bridge the gap between the communities we serve and the community at-large, so it doesn’t feel like we’re segregated from the rest of the community. This is an open space that is welcoming to everyone.
What is your overall vision for the Center?
Our long-term goal is to transform the space into a well needed intersection between the mainstream community and our immigrant community. The center revolves around the concept of bridging social capital and the conviction that immigrants and receiving community members have so much to exchange for the common well-being of our community.
What do you find most challenging about the work?
We hit the ground sprinting! Since taking possession of the property in May we have made great strides towards a fully functioning organization. During that time, we also completed the merger with Aurora Welcome Center, which included acquiring eight programs. We made new contracts with the City of Aurora and Aurora Public School District.
Being new, part of the challenge is convincing the community to buy in to a very large vision. There are many wonderful organizations doing great things. We want to make sure that we create a collaborative environment. Part of this challenge is the limitation of funding for refugees and immigrants in Denver and Aurora.
Our vision incorporates a global and national look at resources and includes talking to corporate sponsors. We hope to develop the Village Exchange Center as a national model of a one-stop community center that includes worship space. We’re doing something different in an effort to bring various communities together.
What concerns are you hearing from community?
With the current political climate, some of our partners are nervous about losing funding, that they will lose the ability to assist people who are here. There is also the question of whether the U.S. will welcome any more immigrants and/or deport the ones that are currently here.
There’s also a concern that people may be vulnerable if they engage in sharing the same space among different faith traditions.
What was your career path prior to joining the Village Exchange Center?
When this opportunity came up, I was excited to apply my legal and entrepreneurial background to creating the infrastructure for the organization.
After law school, I worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce doing international trade, focusing on WTO and NAFTA panels. From there, I pivoted to international intellectual property litigation and worked for the U.S. International Trade Commission as a Supervisory Attorney then Finnegan, LLP, one of the largest IP firms in the world. After that experience, I decided to work as general counsel for individuals and companies.
For the last four years, I’ve also worked as an entrepreneur and investor in a luxury hotel development located in Cartagena, Colombia. I also worked in residential real estate for the last 12 years as a real estate agent and investor.
How does your cultural background impact your work?
I am Jewish and Italian and I have always had consciousness around inequities. My mother and step-father are both ministers. Being raised by two parents in service, my upbringing was around serving the community.
As a child, I studied Japanese in a Buddhist temple for 6 years, Spanish in Guadalajara, Mexico and German in high school. I’ve always had wanderlust and wanted to see the world. After completing college, I moved to Japan and then decided to pursue International Law. I attended Temple University Law School where I participated in both the Israel and Japan programs. To date, I’ve been to 51 different countries.
Through my work at Village Exchange Center, I thoroughly enjoy the daily opportunity for growth and to serve my community. I believe that if people have exposure to others – sharing a meal, for example – allows for a different bonding and true celebration of humanity. We have a remarkable opportunity to do that here.
The Village Exchange Center offers organic and co-located programs, informational services and cultural activities, and aspires to become a “one-stop shop” supporting integration, engagement and empowerment of newly arrived residents.
In this Q&A, Amanda talks about the Village Exchange Center’s creation story, and her unique combination of legal expertise and entrepreneurship in developing a solid foundation for the Center.
What is your role and primary charge at the Village Exchange Center?
I am the executive director and chair of the board. We received a donation of four lots of land from St. Matthew Lutheran Church, a member of the ELCA, in January 2017. The congregation had been looking at how to handle the universal issue of being a shrinking congregation in a changing demographic for a long time. They interviewed multiple nonprofit organizations and unanimously voted to donate the space to Village Exchange Center, thus, allowing the congregation to leave a legacy and serve north Aurora’s refugee and immigrant communities. They will worship here in perpetuity, and St. Matthew members are part of our staff.
At the time of the donation, I was a general counsel working on a landscape of legal issues, and also served as an entrepreneur and investor in a hotel in Cartagena, Colombia. I am still involved in those endeavors, but with the donation of land, I have shifted my focus to building the Village Exchange Center organization. Late 2016, I started the process of creating an LLC and securing 501c3 nonprofit status for the organization.
Recently, we completed the merger with the Aurora Welcome Center. We are working with the City of Aurora and the Aurora Public School District to create different partnerships and methods of fund-raising. We’ve also been busy with planning programming and bringing in staff.
What community needs are served by the Village Exchange Center?
Since opening on May 1, the Village Exchange Center has sought to be a one-stop shop that offers multi-faith and multi-cultural community services to immigrants and refugees in the Aurora and Denver metro area. The idea for Village Exchange Center is to create a space that allows for a celebration of religious and cultural diversity. We respect and honor diversity in both areas.
One of every five residents of Aurora is foreign-born and about 80 percent of refugees in Colorado live in Aurora. Village Exchange Center is located one block from East Colfax and Havana, the center of the refugee and immigrant populations in our city.
The needs served by Village Exchange Center range from citizenship classes, English as a Second Language classes, after-school programming, and more. We are also in the process of developing empowerment programs for newly arrived people in our community, such as youth programs, vocational training, and entrepreneurship programs.
What are the key offerings of the Village Exchange Center?
Most of the people we serve come from strong religious backgrounds. Many are here from war-torn countries where conflicts were based on religious oppression. To ignore and not celebrate that aspect of diversity is a disservice to the community.
We have a large worship space where we provide multi-faith services that includes different congregations. We have Bhutanese Nepali, Congolese, and people from Myanmar who worship in the space. We are also now in conversations with a Muslim congregation that is seeking space.
We take this process of engagement seriously and delicately. Our Director of Multi-Faith Services, was a monk for 10 years, and is the pastor of St. Matthews Lutheran Church. He has a great background of imparting kindness, love and acceptance of all people.
We’re continuing to look at different organizations to partner with. We currently have two programs that are “native” to the Village Exchange Center: the Natural Helpers Program and the Youth Wellness Program. We offer the Natural Helpers program through a partnership with the City of Aurora. Twice a year, we provide training for community leaders to learn about resources available to immigrants and refugees. We offer a three-day intensive class that brings service providers to present to our natural leaders what they do, and how they do it. As leaders, they bring the information and knowledge about resources back to their communities.
Our Youth Wellness Program provides workshops that promote a healthy lifestyle, like healthy eating and outdoor trips. The program also provides tutoring, help with homework, and other wellness activities. We have hired Amy Buchanan, a former employee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as our Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services, to develop and implement this program.
Another program we are developing is a vocational training program around food preparation, and catering services. One of our first capital campaigns will be to activate the large kitchen downstairs into a commercial kitchen. We hope to provide training to community members around cooking and food preparation skills, and serve a meal a day to anyone who needs it.
We want to bridge the gap between the communities we serve and the community at-large, so it doesn’t feel like we’re segregated from the rest of the community. This is an open space that is welcoming to everyone.
What is your overall vision for the Center?
Our long-term goal is to transform the space into a well needed intersection between the mainstream community and our immigrant community. The center revolves around the concept of bridging social capital and the conviction that immigrants and receiving community members have so much to exchange for the common well-being of our community.
What do you find most challenging about the work?
We hit the ground sprinting! Since taking possession of the property in May we have made great strides towards a fully functioning organization. During that time, we also completed the merger with Aurora Welcome Center, which included acquiring eight programs. We made new contracts with the City of Aurora and Aurora Public School District.
Being new, part of the challenge is convincing the community to buy in to a very large vision. There are many wonderful organizations doing great things. We want to make sure that we create a collaborative environment. Part of this challenge is the limitation of funding for refugees and immigrants in Denver and Aurora.
Our vision incorporates a global and national look at resources and includes talking to corporate sponsors. We hope to develop the Village Exchange Center as a national model of a one-stop community center that includes worship space. We’re doing something different in an effort to bring various communities together.
What concerns are you hearing from community?
With the current political climate, some of our partners are nervous about losing funding, that they will lose the ability to assist people who are here. There is also the question of whether the U.S. will welcome any more immigrants and/or deport the ones that are currently here.
There’s also a concern that people may be vulnerable if they engage in sharing the same space among different faith traditions.
What was your career path prior to joining the Village Exchange Center?
When this opportunity came up, I was excited to apply my legal and entrepreneurial background to creating the infrastructure for the organization.
After law school, I worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce doing international trade, focusing on WTO and NAFTA panels. From there, I pivoted to international intellectual property litigation and worked for the U.S. International Trade Commission as a Supervisory Attorney then Finnegan, LLP, one of the largest IP firms in the world. After that experience, I decided to work as general counsel for individuals and companies.
For the last four years, I’ve also worked as an entrepreneur and investor in a luxury hotel development located in Cartagena, Colombia. I also worked in residential real estate for the last 12 years as a real estate agent and investor.
How does your cultural background impact your work?
I am Jewish and Italian and I have always had consciousness around inequities. My mother and step-father are both ministers. Being raised by two parents in service, my upbringing was around serving the community.
As a child, I studied Japanese in a Buddhist temple for 6 years, Spanish in Guadalajara, Mexico and German in high school. I’ve always had wanderlust and wanted to see the world. After completing college, I moved to Japan and then decided to pursue International Law. I attended Temple University Law School where I participated in both the Israel and Japan programs. To date, I’ve been to 51 different countries.
Through my work at Village Exchange Center, I thoroughly enjoy the daily opportunity for growth and to serve my community. I believe that if people have exposure to others – sharing a meal, for example – allows for a different bonding and true celebration of humanity. We have a remarkable opportunity to do that here.