Our Community Our Home: Ai STUDiO Gives Back

At Ai STUDiO, giving back to our Denver community is embedded into our work culture. We want to give back to those in our community that are struggling, whether that’s a toy drive during the holidays or school supplies in the Fall. It has been a priority for us since we started the business, but we felt it crucial to contribute this past year with the extreme hardships so many have faced.  Not only was it a trying year financially for many, but the negative emotions and hate that circulated in the world created a deeper desire to spread love and empathy wherever we could.

Our owner, Stephanie Holmes, notes that it wasn’t a hard decision to get the staff to participate three times a year in the Denver Gives charity drive.  

“Our team at Ai is composed of very empathetic, caring individuals so we have a natural inclination towards charitable acts,” Holmes says.  

During this year’s Holiday Drive we had the opportunity to help a single mom and her two children as well as a disabled senior.  We had the pleasure of providing the mom with much needed self-care and fulfilling her two childrens’ gift wish list.  The senior has a love for red, a flair for fashion and passion for cooking, which she can no longer do herself.  We were able to give her some new, beautiful red clothing and homemade tamales (one of her favorite foods!). 

Through the participation of businesses and individuals in Denver, the charity organization was able to help:

• 544 family members, single children, older adults and adults with disabilities within our Child Welfare and APS Division were matched with a donor and received holiday gifts specifically for them. 

• 837 additional Child Welfare clients received gifts from our general holiday gifts and monetary donations (children and families in Foster Care, Kinship Care and Child Protection). 

• 473 individuals received holiday gifts whose families are on SNAP (food access) and TANF (state assistance) services 

• 57 children received holiday gifts who work with DHS through their school’s FACE Center 

• 138 people received holiday gifts who are experiencing homelessness or unstable housing. 

• 212 individuals receive holiday gifts who are served by our agency’s GIVE Center. 

“The organization does so much to help so many people locally which is part of the reason it means so much to us.  We also love that it has multiple ways to get involved throughout the year and each one helps different individuals in different ways,” Holmes says. “We hope each year, we can make it a little bigger.  This year, with the help of all the other showrooms and designers that donated, we were the largest donor! We would love to double it next year,” Holmes says.

Want to get involved? Join us three times a year in the May Hygiene Drive, July-August School Supply Drive and conclude the year with the November-December Holiday Gift Drive. Learn more about donations and ways to help by, visit the Denver Gives Donation page.

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