Dr. Renee Fajardo
Personal Biography
Dr. Fajardo has long been an advocate of children and family rights. Her work with art education, literacy, and community programming have crossed all borders and boundaries. The former director of the Crossover Project, a nonprofit cultural arts education program, Dr. Fajardo has organized summer camps for at risk children, implemented high school cultural workshops, and helped provide cultural programming to thousands of students in the past 15 years. As a board member of many cultural-nonprofit organizations throughout the state of Colorado, Dr. Fajardo has extensive knowledge of cultural, ceremonial, and community traditions of numerous indigenous people. Her own Chicana/Native American (Picuris Pueblo) and European roots allow her to be sensitive to the many nuances that face today students of color. A Denver native and graduate of the University of Nebraska, College of she is also a freelance writer specializing in the South West. She has published articles dealing with subjects ranging from the migrant farm worker crisis in America to the importance of cultural art in impoverished neighborhoods to profiling success stories of immigrant families who own their own businesses. She is also the co-author of the Holy Mole Guacamole Tummy Tale series with Carl Ruby, a series of four children�s books on food, culture, and family. She co-produced the Return of the Corn Mothers exhibition, a Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Award recipient for 2009, along with master photographer Todd Pierson. She strongly believes that community is family and through our connection to our past and ancestral ways we can empathize with others in a compassionate way.
