August 22, 2023

Future Town Tour lands in five Colorado Towns September 13-23, 2023: Walsenburg, Fort Garland, Center, Leadville, and Alamosa 

Future Town Tour launched in Leadville, Colorado on Earth Day weekend 2023, as a collaboration between Warm Cookies of the Revolution (Denver) and Lake County Build a Generation (Leadville). Various Leadville orgs and businesses co-sponsored three events in 24-hours, including Freight, C4 and Lake County Public Library. The video recap of Future Town spring 2023 can be viewed HERE. 

Future Town will now take the show on the road: 

9/13 WALSENBURG, CO @ The Fox Theater

Back to the Future Mixtape 

Wednesday September 13th, Doors 5:30 | Event 6-8:30

All ages, free admission and free food! 

The Future Town Bilingual Creative Circus comes to town in partnership with the Huajatolla Heritage Foundation. The community is invited to the Fox Theater for an evening of traditional food, folklorico dance, performance art, poetry, music, and perspective. Local residents will participate in a multigenerational conversation about the past, present, and future of Walsenburg. Feature music acts include DJ STV, local Tejano band Dynamix, and Denver multi-instrumentalist Felix Fast4Ward. The event will also feature a multi-media production of Huerfano County in its years of prosperity, and a pictorial archive of 25 of the Founding Hispano Families in Huerfano County.

9/14 FORT GARLAND, CO @ Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center 

The Ancestors and Futurists Tour

Thursday, September 14th, 5:30-10:00pm

All ages, free admission and free food provided by Pepita’s Catering! 

The Future Town People’s Forum comes to History Colorado’s Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center—a military fort built in 1858, ten years after one-half of Mexico became part of the United States. The purpose of this event to to reflect on our collective past and invoke the radical imagination for a more livable future. Current museum exhibitions explore Black and Indigenous histories in Colorado at the intersections of freedom and enslavement, civil war, westward expansion, and ancestral homelands. Everyone is invited, and participants will move together through curated activities, reflections, and performances. Creative elements include visual art, poetry, ceremonial dance and live music, including local, regional, and national acts. Notable contributions include Antonio, CO Mayor and poet Aaron Abeyta, and musician Felix Ayodele’s original composition the ballad of the buffalo soldier out west. The evening will close with a night sky program, warm fires, and cultural comfort foods. 

9/15 CENTER, CO @ Center High School

Bilingual Creative Circus & H.S. Tailgate Party / celebración previa al partido de los Vikings

Friday, September 15th, 4-7PM

All ages, free admission and free food!

Future Town brings a new skool tailgate party to town in this localized celebration of music, culture and sports. Center Consolidated Schools will partner with Future Town Tour on a multilingual pre-game festival with locally-catered Mexican food and circus elements. Entertainment includes live music by local Guatemalan band Marimba Espitiru Maya, and 2MX2—a multilingual hip-hop group out of Denver. Members of the Vikings High School band will join the eclectic music celebration. Local residents are invited to bring drums, instruments, poems, songs and raps for an open jam session at 4PM. We will cheer on the hometown Center Vikings high football team at 7PM. 

9/17 LEADVILLE, CO @ Ice Palace Park + Healy House Museum 

Lettuce Gather 

Sunday, September 17th

10:30AM-12:30PM CommunityYoga and Herbal Plant Walk at Ice Palace Park

Bring a yoga mat if you have one! 

5:00-8:30PM Dinner, Workshop, Art and Music at Healy House Museum 

Both events are free and accessible to all ages, levels, and abilities 

Future Town Tour returns to Leadville where it all began on Earth Day 2023. Lake County Build a Generation will unveil a Lake County Food Action Plan that envisions a sustainable and regenerative food system to provide local, healthy, and affordable food to all residents of Lake County by 2030. Beyond the logistics and infrastructure of food security, Future Town: Lettuce Gather brings a holistic health lens, affirming that food is intimately tied to culture, creativity, and civics. What would an entirely different food system look like, and how do we get there together? This event tackles some difficult questions related to food, health, equity and environment, but not without movement, music, muse and fun. 

9/23 ALAMOSA, CO @ Adams State University and Historic Zapata Park

Muscle Cars & Scrapers Campus Takeover and Historic Zapata Park Jam

9AM-3:30PM Car Show at Adams State University McDaniel Hall Parking Lot 

4PM-ish Maestas Case Cruise down Ross Ave to Historic Zapata Park

5:30-9PM Historic Zapata Park Jam featuring Brown Boy and 2MX2 at Zapata Park

All ages, free admission and free food!

Future Town Tour has joined the Five Star Riders Car Club & Shooting Stars Cultural and Leadership Center in Alamosa to support the 11th Annual Muscle Cars and Scrapers Campus Takeover at Adams State University. Car show registration begins at 8AM, and awards will be presented at 3PM. The event is dedicated to the memory and legacy of the 1914 Maestas vs. Shone case and the struggle for equal education among Hispano and Mexican American students in Alamosa. This was one of the first successful challenges to school segregation in the United States. After the car show, there will be a cruise down Ross Avenue to Zapata Park, where a concert will take place featuring rappers Brown Boy and 2MX2 and other local and regional artists. There will be free food and freshly-baked biscochitos at the park jam. The Boys & Girls Clubs of the San Luis Valley is also sponsoring the event. 

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Project Statement:

Future Town Tour is a project powered by Warm Cookies of the Revolution—a civic health club that aims to meaningfully impact civic health in the state of Colorado. Future Town Tour reimagines small towns in the American West, positioning them in the future rather than in the past. When people think about and talk about innovation, they tend to focus on what’s happening in big cities. Future Town Tour seeks to change that, while growing urban and rural partnerships and tackling racial, social, and cultural divisions. Program concepts include the Future Town Bilingual Creative Circus, Future Town People’s Forum, and Future Town Creative Day of Service. These programs are co-visioned and co-planned with local artists, community leaders and organizations. The mission is to inspire ongoing rural+urban+suburban collaborations cross-cultural events, community festivals, arts installations, and local civic actions. Fresh, locally-baked cookies will be featured at every event!