Green Bean Coffeehouse at 210 N. 85th St. is partnering with Awake Church through December to raise awareness about families who call Aurora motels “home.” A portion of the tips for the baristas will provide housing assistance to these families, and also give them an opportunity to tell their stories.
All the photos were taken by members of the families living in Aurora motels.
This Christmas season, we invite you to get to know the stories of some of your neighbors. They don’t live in Greenwood, Ballard, or Greenlake. They live in the motels scattered throughout the Aurora corridor. They aren’t drug dealers or women involved in prostitution. They are families who shop in your grocery stores, attend your children’s schools, walk to your libraries, share your concern about the economy, and believe it or not, may have called their motel “home” for almost three decades.
As you drink your coffee, we invite you to take some time to look at the photography (taken exclusively by Aurora children, mothers & fathers), gain a new perspective from the audio on the personal CD players, and allow your minds to wander about what it means to see your neighbor, not as you have defined them to be or by what you think they might need from your advocacy, but as neighbors who glow as they give and laugh as they receive.
