March 2025

Leadership and culture aren’t about being the boss or being in control; they are about creating shared visions and goals, and then inspiring, empowering and influencing others to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

-Gary Brooks

February tends to go by really fast so when I realized that we were almost at the end of the month, I was not ready for March.  I still have so much to do before we start our grant proposal writing season in March. We still need to recruit one more board member, finish our website, organize for Aurora Rising project, and get everyone on board with the new agenda. But time doesn’t wait for us so we have to get cracking whether we are ready or not.

Rather than focus on what we have yet to do, I would like to shift our attention to what has been accomplished.  We have two young new volunteer board members, Lexianna Salazar and Yohana Liben. They will be joining us this year!  Lexianna is a senior in high school and Yohana is a college student at the University of Denver. They are committed to making Platform grow into a viable organization for our community.  There is nothing like youthful exuberance, creativity, endless possibilities, frenetic energy, and hopeful attitude.  It will take a little time to get them acclimated to our organization and board responsibilities but once they understand their roles, we will get cranking on our Spring project, Aurora Rising.  If you want to get more information on them, check out our new website.

Yes, you are correct. Our new website is up and running but it is far from perfect. We still need to polish it up a bit so it catches the eye of our donors and provide the relevant information that represents what we do. Our previous website was constantly updated as we shifted our focus from national to local, from older to younger audience. The photos and events sometimes clashed and it was never clear what our organization did and who our audience was. Now, we have a streamlined message “We Grow Leaders” in the city of Aurora, working primarily with the young immigrant population. Why? Aurora is mostly intercultural where close to 60% of the students in the Aurora Public Schools identify as Hispanic. 60%!!! And most of the students are low to low middle class. Imagine a school system where 75% of the students receive free or reduced lunch. We would be misrepresenting our community if we did not focus on the low socio-economic, immigrant population.

I am excited and slightly anxious as we move forward with our new board and website, especially under the new administration and their executive orders which undermine the safety of our community. But we grow leaders for the challenges that lie ahead of us so that they may lead us into the future where everyone can sit at the table.

Sam Joo

CEO and Founder

February 28, 2025