Kickball Tournament
Stapleton United Neighbors’ (SUN) 14th annual kickball tournament, Sat., Sept. 9, will have a different location from previous years: the fields at Stanley Marketplace. Stanley’s fields, located near the banks of Westerly Creek south of 25th Ave. in Aurora, have previously hosted The Big Wonderful. This exciting new venue will allow participants to enjoy food/drinks from the Stanley Marketplace during the afternoon double-elimination tournament. Team signup and rules are available on the SUN website: www.StapletonUnitedNeighbors.com.

SUN designates a charity recipient each year for funds raised through the kickball tournament. Last year’s recipient was the Community Hub at Northfield for assistance in paying utilities. This year’s recipient will be The Urban Farm (TUF) at Stapleton. TUF’s mission and purpose are to provide experiential learning and practical work experience to young people in a farm setting and to inspire excitement for learning while fostering personal confidence, resilience, teamwork, and real-world problem-solving skills. TUF experienced a great loss of many animals in January 2017 from a wild animal attack overnight inside of their animal enclosures. SUN’s donation will contribute to replenishing TUF’s animal habitats, population and the associated programming. http://theurbanfarm.org

SUN’s Annual Forum and Election, May 16, 6:30-8:15pm
The annual community forum, the third Tuesday in May at Central Park Recreation Center (9651 MLK Jr. Blvd) will feature speakers from Stapleton-specific organizations (SUN, MCA, Forest City), as well as city representatives from Denver Police, Denver Parks and Rec, and our liaison with the city of Denver, Bar Chadwick. CDOT and Northeast Transportation Connections will cover the I-70 project and multimodal transportation concerns. The agenda for the forum will begin with SUN elections and a vote to update our bylaws to include a statement of operating principles. Each subsequent speaker will have a quick 10 minutes for a presentation, ending with 30 minutes of question and answers. Any question that SUN receives in advance will be sent to the appropriate speaker in advance for consideration in his/her prepared comments. Contact: StapletonUnitedNeighbors@gmail.com

The evening of the forum would be an excellent opportunity to visit one of the newly opened restaurants in the Eastbridge Town Center, located across the street from the Central Park Rec Center. http://www.eastbridgetowncenter.com/directory/

The annual forum is the last monthly meeting SUN will hold with the community until August. Any resident interested in joining a committee with the SUN board should attend the board meeting on the third Tuesday in June, 6:30pm, Central Park Recreation Center.

SUN Survey: Open through Mid-May
The Spring SUN survey opened mid-month in April, and will remain open through mid-May. Topics on this eight-page survey include education, crime prevention, community activity, and stress. While we encourage all members of the Stapleton community to attend our monthly meetings and annual forum, we recognize that there are challenges in covering a range of issues during in-person meetings. Please take the opportunity to share experiences and preferences so that SUN’s future efforts can better meet the community’s needs in an evidence-based manner. This survey is anonymous, so please be sure to separately contact SUN directly if you would like a response for any questions or comments. The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete, but some answers will open additional questions. Aggregated survey results will be published in a future SUN Spot in the Front Porch, on SUN’s Facebook page, and discussed at monthly meetings in the fall of 2017. The link to the survey: https://redcap.ucdenver.edu/surveys/?s=T8CNAL3CH7

Parks Advisory Group Transitions to SUN
By Lucia Correll
The Parks Advisory Group (PAG) was established in 2001 as a subcommittee to the Stapleton Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) to provide guidance to the SDC director of Parks and Environment—particularly regarding consistency with the spirit and vision of the Stapleton Development Plan (Green Book) and the provisions of the Stapleton Parks and Recreation Master Plan.

The Park Advisory Group met monthly until January of this year. As the years passed, the director position (mentioned above) was eliminated and approximately 1,000 acres of the mandated 1,116 acres of Truck Open Space was developed. In January of 2017, the PAG transitioned from having a monthly meeting to becoming part of Stapleton United Neighbors (SUN).

There is still open space to be developed and there are large parks north of I-70 still under construction. The hope is that the transition to SUN will make it easier for residents to voice concerns or comments about parks and to obtain information about parks at the monthly SUN outreach meeting. If you want to communicate about parks, you are welcome to come to the SUN outreach meetings on the third Tuesday of the month or to contact me with questions or issues. Lucia can be reached at Lcorrell@dotnet.net.