About the Author:  Mireya Davila is the Senior Health Equity Program Manager at The Village Exchange Center.  She has extensive experience working in various non-profit organizations focusing on health, equity, and immigration.  She was born and raised in Denver and enjoys the great outdoors this beautiful state has to offer.

Village Exchange Center (VEC) is a non-profit serving immigrants and refugees in the Aurora/Denver metro area. As a community center and multi-faith worship space, we seek to celebrate cultural and religious diversity by creating an inclusive environment where residents from all backgrounds interact, share, and develop together. We offer youth and adult programs and services as well as cultural and multifaith activities.  Some of our current programs that focus on health and wellbeing include the VEC food pantry, farm and vaccination clinics.

Our pantry is unique because we provide culturally appropriate foods to various churches and community organizations who then distribute among their members.  As an example, we currently collaborate with a halal butcher, whom we purchase cows to provide halal meat for our families! 

We also have a farm located at The Stanley Marketplace, where we grow organic produce which serves our pantry participants and sell to local ethnic and farmer’s market.

Our vaccination clinic offers the COVID-19 and flu vaccines.  Our clinic is open and available to all communities however, we primarily serve people who are uninsured.  Recently, we have seen a large surge of immigrants and refugees from Central America attend our clinics with approximately 80-100 individuals vaccinated in a given night.

If you would like to learn more or get involved with the mission of The Village Exchange Center, please reach out to Mireya at mireya@villageexchangecenter.org or visit our website at:  https://villageexchangecenter.org/