AANHPI community plans new ‘Social Fabric’ center with $500,000 federal grant

AURORA | As Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month comes to a close, Colorado’s AANHPI community is one step closer to having a central location to celebrate their heritage. 

During a press conference Thursday, Colorado Asian Culture and Education Network  announced their latest steps for a new community center. It will serve as a hub for resources, social services and programming for AANHPI immigrant and refugee communities. 

The community center, called Social Fabric, will be located at 67 Inverness Drive in Englewood, near Centennial Airport, and is set to open in the first half of 2025, CACEN Director Annie Guo VanDan said during the presentation. 

VanDan also said that the community center will:

• Include office spaces for non-profit organizations and businesses
• Serve as a gathering place for community members
• Be used as event spaces for competitions and holidays
• Include health and wellness providers and services
• Have a library of bookstore highlighting AANHPI authors
• And also be family friendly

VanDan said the need for this space started to rise in 2020, when anti-Asian hate crimes increased during the pandemic. She also explained that there was also a general need for Asian Americans to feel more visible and share their culture with their friends and community members, 

“I know many of you, my friends in the community, have been a part of this vision for so long,” VanDan said while getting emotional. “It’s just very exciting.”

Also during the press conference, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow gave CACEN $500,000 in congressional appropriation funds, which will go to support the community center. 

“I am very proud to represent this community for a lot of reasons but one of things I’m most proud of is the diversity of this community, “Crow said. “I’m honored with this $500,000 to help open Denver’s first Asian American Social Fabric Community Center, which I think is going to be a model, not only for Colorado, but potentially the rest of the country.”