Connections

AfterHours inspires me. I don't just mean the people who show up downtown, or the people who show up in the bar, or our folks who get in line for a lunch. I mean the whole dang thing inspires me.

• The history of the thing: the guts it takes to start something outside the box, outside the church building, outside expectations, outside of how things have always been done

• The people: the way people give their time, their resources, their love, and who give their attention to people living hard, outside, in the elements, under the scorn of so many relatively comfortable people

• The connections: everyone who pays attention to AfterHours, who receive our emails, who check us out on social media or our website, who donate their money, who send us good vibes and remember us in their prayers, and especially people who come over at the bar and ask, "What the heck are you doing?"

AfterHours connects thousands of individuals across every imaginable line of difference and boundary. Through AfterHours you and me and all our supporters are connected across riches and poverty, sex and gender, age and geography. We come together in person in downtown Denver, at the bar, and virtually on social media and the internet. And, we come together in the physical, emotional, spiritual, and monetary support we show for each other and to AfterHours as a community and to the people served by that community.

I am grateful for you. I am grateful for our connection, and for the connections we all share through AfterHours that we may not even truly know about.