When I was a little girl, I would sit under the old round wooden claw foot kitchen table at my grandmother’s house. The smell of red chili and homemade tortillas filled the air, while the music of laughter from generations of women (mothers and daughters, aunts and an occasional male voice passing through to steal a warm tortilla) let me know that life was happening just above my hiding spot.

This is where life lessons were learned: how to care for a colicky baby, how to handle unruly teenagers, what to add to make the tortillas rise just enough, and the whispers of jokes not meant for me or my cousins (or sometimes the men in the other room).

With constant changes in our world, finding that small town familial support, “consejos” (advice) is hard
to come by. But, not when you’re a member of The Highlands Mommies, a parenting support group in North West Denver. We have recreated that missing comfort through our online parenting community. Our lives have been forever changed by social media and we ensure that it is for the better.

Highlands Mommies is North West Denver’s largest online parent organization. We are simply tied by
one overarching goal: to have a better community for our children to grow up in. We define parents as anyone who is raising children. With that said we have single fathers, single mothers, grandparents, gay parents, extended family raising children and foster parents (basically anyone raising children). Under the umbrella of Highlands Mommies, we also have 60 subgroups that reflect our various members’ interest and or needs such as groups by age of children, political, volunteer work, business, and common interests such as yoga or running.

Recently, in response to home and car break-ins in our many neighborhoods, we held our first Town Hall
in partnership with the District 1 Police Station, and District 1 Council Woman Paula Sandoval. We are
actively working with our own assigned officer to share information and relay concerns and questions in
order to create a greater community.

Our members are involved in just about every aspect of our community and actively share information
on events happening in North West Denver. Currently, the Giving Gals, which is the charitable arm of
the Highlands Mommies, is working on yet another fundraiser in our community. The planning has
long been underway for (Totally) Taste of Tennyson, an 80’s-themed Pub Crawl taking place on north
Tennyson on April 30th, 2011 @ 6p.m. Various restaurants, galleries and boutiques are participating.
Proceeds from this fundraiser will be divided equally among eight schools in our boundaries.

Last year they held a similar event and raised a total of $12K which was equally divided among four neighborhood schools in need of financial support. That is what we are about in North West Denver: “buying local, staying local, supporting local.” In the end, ‘ it takes a village,’ and this group of parents is determined that their tribe will thrive.

Members of our Highlands Mommies Business Group are also hosting their 2nd annual Spring Fling
event at North High School (2960 North Speer Blvd.) Saturday April 9th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This
unique community event will hold a Kid Topia of 10k square feet of bounce houses; face painting done
by North High School students, The Denver Aquarium hosting kid friendly activities and their mobile
reptile show, balloon twisters and other activities. Denver Police District 1 will be providing their bicycle
village program which is a trike and bike safety program. These event publications are bilingual and they offer bilingual advertisement for local business.

(Executive Leadership Team)

For more information on the Highlands Mommies, you can visit them on their web site at:
www.highlandsmommies.org

Highlands Mommies (HM) will be a monthly contributor at Mile High Mamas. Guest blogger Elina Martinez is the group’s co-Managing Director and sees HM as a unifying force with great potential to represent and empower the diverse parents in our area, across racial, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. Passionate about community engagement and educational equality, Elina has a master’s degree in education and is a proud single parent to four children (“three boys and one princess; they’re all super cool!”) ranging from 2 to 20.