Women In March – Part I of IV
Nearly every day, Pueblo executive Andrea Aragon touches a life in southern Colorado in a positive, often serendipitous way. From time to time, the person, persons or organizations that benefit from Aragon’s largess may not even cross paths with her, at least, not immediately.
The reasons for this sometimes failure to connect, at least in person connection, are geography and, since it’s Colorado, weather. The vastness of Aragon’s region is immense, and seasonal travel is often challenging. It’s eighteen counties, basically the lower southern quadrant of Colorado, an area covering nearly 25,000 square miles.
Aragon is the Executive Director of the Pueblo-based Robert Hoag Rawlings Foundation, a philanthropic organization that awards grants to non-profit groups across the region. The foundation was started by Rawlings who published the paper and was a tireless advocate for the region for 70 years.
Aragon’s work—helping others—comes naturally to the Rocky Ford native. Before taking the job with the RHR Foundation, she served as the Executive Director of Pueblo’s United Way, a position she held for seventeen years.
But working for United Way, raising money, coordinating campaigns, conducting its business across the county, while rewarding, said Aragon, also became a bit more than she needed at that particular time in her life. Her husband was dealing with health issues, she had two growing children and, she said, “I got to the point where I needed to make a big change.” The change came somewhat as a surprise. It happened only days after she left United Way.
“I got a call from Jane Rawlings,” said Aragon. Rawlings, former publisher of The Chieftain, had heard about Aragon’s plans to leave United Way and called to invite her to lunch. While at lunch, she recalled, Rawlings “offered me the job (of Executive Director).” She accepted and began in the Fall of 2017.
As a child and young person, Aragon, like so many others living in the farming communities of the Arkansas Valley, she knew Pueblo as the ‘big city.’ Pueblo, the hub of southern Colorado, is where people from all around the area come for health care, big purchases like cars, appliances and things not available at home.
When she graduated from Rocky Ford High School, she enrolled at what is now Colorado State University-Pueblo earning a degree in Mass Communications. Her first job out of school was as Executive Director of the city’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where she worked to streamline the operation, making it a brand in the city.
The experience at the Hispanic Chamber and later at CSU-Pueblo, where she did fundraising, prepared her for the grind at the United Way. Now, firmly ensconced at the Rawlings Foundation, she uses tools taken from each stop to drive the mission.
Her position at the Foundation was initially awarding scholarship in each of the 18 counties, but slowly evolved into something far more encompassing. “We did virtual round tables,” said Aragon, to determine how best to serve each community. Information gleaned from the round tables, took the Foundation in a whole new, supportive and important direction.
Today, she said, the Foundation provides grants to community kitchens, aids senior centers, helps small town museums and lends a hand in supporting rural schools, including providing grants to pay student fees for sports programs, even helping financially strapped districts buy uniforms.
The Foundation’s contributions can range from grants as modest as a $500 all the way up to $200,000. Each grant is for a full year, said Aragon. An organization receiving a grant must wait one full year before it’s eligible to receive another. “We want to have the money to fund other organizations.”
One of the things Aragon has found rewarding as the Executive Director of the Foundation has been periodically returning to her long ago hometown to award a grant. There she sometimes crosses paths with people she knew growing up or others who just remember her from years before.
“We’ve done a couple in Rocky Ford,” she said. “One was to the Rocky Ford Museum…an exhibit that focused on agriculture.”
Growing up in the agriculturally rich Arkansas Valley, Aragon knows how so many families in the small towns like Crowley, Las Animas and Ordway, struggle for basic necessities. Grants, she said, even the smallest ones, can go for buying things not always easily affordable; things as simple as diapers. “I know how hard they (the people) work, how hard it is to raise a buck. I know how grateful they are.”
Like many Coloradans, Aragon’s family came to the Arkansas Valley from Anton Chico, one of New Mexico’s first settlements. Her grandparents came to Rocky Ford to work in agriculture and later in the town’s sugar refinery. Her own parents chose to stay, her father working for Otero County’s Roads and Bridges, her mother, a kindergarten teacher’s aide.
The one constant in Aragon’s professional career has been helping others. At Pueblo’s Hispanic Chamber, she redefined its profile bringing in new members and nurturing its growth. At the United Way, she raised money, strengthened relationships and helped create a mentor- ship program bringing together professionals with middle schoolers. It’s a program that is thriving today. Each stop along the way, she said, has been perfect preparation for her job today.
But finding herself standing in towns like the one where she grew up and doing something to make things just a tiny bit better may be the best reward. “This is a dream job come true,” she said. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had.”
