Lakewood inducted into All-America City Hall of Fame

Lakewood’s traiblazing efforts to go ‘green’ to make the city more vibrant and sustainable have put us into the National Civic League’s All-America City Hall of Fame! The city received this recognition June 28 at the league’s annual awards program in Denver for the success of our Sustainable Neighborhoods Program, which has been the blueprint for a nationwide sustainable community network stretching as far as Portland, Maine, and Sedona, Arizona.

Mayor Wendi Strom accepted the award on behalf of the city and thanked the judging panel for the honor.

“We are grateful for the recognition, and this motivates us to continue striving to live up to the values of this award,” she said, which include a shared vision, civic engagement and collaboration.  

The Sustainable Neighborhoods Program was conceived more than 10 years ago as a way for residents to establish more sustainable lifestyles and reduce their ecological footprints. From its conception onward, the program has been based on a simple principle: Having residents determine how they want to accomplish sustainability. The residents are the decision-makers, action-takers and community builders. The city’s role is merely to provide resources such as publishing newsletters, mailing event and informational postcards, providing connections to experts, arranging training events and talking over strategies.

This approach is the very definition of “grassroots” organizing and the highest form of civic engagement. The program has grown from one pilot project to 10 neighborhoods, with 21,939 households participating, which accounts for about one-third of all the city’s households. During the last 10 years, the neighborhoods have organized more than 1,200 events, programs, workshops and activities, with more than 100,450 residents participating  – an impressive number for a city with a population of about 156,000.

“Years ago, I was told that members of our community really fundamentally want to do the right thing for our environment, but not everyone knows what those steps are,” Mayor Strom said. “One of my favorite things about the Sustainable Neighborhoods Program is that it helps one neighbor learn from another as we all work to address sustainability and climate resiliency.”

The impact of this program has been nationwide. In 2014, when Denver wanted to harness its residents’ passion for sustainability, Denver’s staff worked with Lakewood to adopt the program, thus forming the Sustainable Neighborhood Network. Besides Denver, Portland and Sedona, the network also includes Wheat Ridge and Fort Collins.

Locally, the program serves a wide range of residents. One-third of the residents in the neighborhoods are over age 65. More than half have lower median incomes, and nearly half are residents who didn’t graduate from high school. In 2020, when the program had the resources to expand to more neighborhoods, the city was also intentional about reaching out to areas of the city that have diverse socioeconomic, racial and cultural backgrounds.

To learn more about this program, visit its webpages and connect with one of the neighborhoods.