On Sept. 12, over 350 attendees from all over Colorado descended upon your beautiful city to attend the 2018 Southwest Rural Philanthropy Days conference.
They were greeted at the Cortez Recreation Center by Mayor Sheek and RPD volunteers. They spent two days attending events in Parque de Vida, the police station, the welcome center, city hall, the First United Methodist Church, Crow Canyon and the Montezuma Fairgrounds. It was a very successful event by all accounts. But what I want to address is what happened behind the scenes leading up to and during the event.
The people of Cortez are exceptional hosts. Joye and Dan especially but everyone at the rec center went above and beyond to ensure our time there went smoothly (and did it with genuine smiles), Mark and Jon with the City arranged everything so all our outdoor events would go off without a hitch, Jean and Pat at the Methodist church welcomed attendees with cookies, accepted our leftover food with open arms, and then took care of putting all the rooms back together again when we were done. Larry and Tanner at the fairgrounds knocked it out of the park.
Each venue was so gracious to our attendees and so accommodating.
I’ve been doing events for over 10 years and I’ve never experienced such willingness to help.
Cortez left such a great impression on those attendees and I’m sure they are looking forward to returning soon to explore on their own.
Thank you, Cortez!
Kristi Smith
Pagosa Springs
