Your vote matters!

"It's a major award!"

The Emily Griffith Foundation was presented a check for $15,000 this week from the Hyatt Regency hotel.  The check was awarded to the school’s Work Intensive Skills Camp (WISC), a refugee job-training program that, for six years, has partnered with the Hyatt Regency to help newly-arrived refugees in Denver secure employment in the hospitality industry.

Work Intensive Skills Camp instructor, Kate Goodspeed and student,
Rup Neupane accept a check for $15,000

In addition to Hyatt, the program partners with businesses like The Brown Palace, Curtis Hotel and Denver Athletic Club, but this is the first time that one of the partnering companies has financially supported the EGTC program.

Vote. Give. Thrive.
In addition to the $15,000 award, Emily Griffith Foundation has the opportunity to receive additional funds as part of Hyatt’s Vote. Give. Thrive. contest in which anyone can view and vote for a video of the Work Intensive Skills Camp’s partnership with the Hyatt Regency. 

Now through December 31, Emily Griffith Foundation will be competing with organizations throughout the world in this contest. Individuals can vote on Hyatt’s Facebook page. The non-profit with the most votes will receive an additional $10,000, and the second and third place organizations will each receive an additional $5,000. Visit Facebook.com/Hyatt for more details. You can vote once a day through December 31.

“The Hyatt Regency was our first community partner,” said Kate Goodspeed, instructor for the Work Intensive Skills Camp. “In 6 years, we’ve had over 320 students job shadow at Hyatt Hotels and many have been hired.  We are very grateful and excited that they successfully nominated us for the Hyatt Thrive grant.” 

This year the Emily Griffith Foundation is one of 26 non-profits worldwide to receive funding from Hyatt Hotel.  In 2012, Hyatt Hotels awarded more than $300,000 in grants to non-profits in communities where Hyatt hotels operate. The funding is a key component of Hyatt Thrive – Hyatt’s global corporate responsibility platform which encourages hotels around the world to identify and nominate local nonprofits for funding consideration through the Hyatt Hotels Foundation. The program builds on Hyatt’s belief that nobody understands a community’s most pressing issues – and their solutions – better than those that live and work there.   Hyatt Thrive encourages hotel associates to guide charitable giving in support of local organizations and  efforts to further economic development.

Work Intensive Skills Camp was developed because of a need to provide more job-training resources for refugees with low levels of English. In the 2012 fiscal year, Work Intensive Skills Camp trained more than 130 refugees for jobs in Colorado.  The program focuses on industry driven demands of the workforce and trains individuals through hands-on skills and classroom instruction.  Individuals in the program come from countries like Somalia, Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan, Ethiopia and Iraq. 

Learn about Tibetan Buddhism

A discussion about Tibetan Buddhism
Thursday, December 6, 2012

3:30-5:00 p.m.

Emily Griffith Technical College

1250 Welton St., Room 123

Click here for a map

This presentation is free and open to the public. 

Join us on Thursday, December 6 for a presentation about Tibetan Buddhism. The presenter, Yungdrung Gyeltsen, is Buddhist monk who fled Tibet 26 years ago. Yungdrung, who holds a Ph.D. in Tibetan Philosophy, currently lives in Denver and studies English at Emily Griffith Technical College.

In addition to being a student, Yungdrung is passionate about helping others understand Tibetan culture and the philosophies and beliefs behind Tibetan Buddhism. You may remember him from a video produced by DPStv earlier this year. His story is compelling.



Refugee Profile: Tibetan monk from DPStv on Vimeo.