Greenhouse Scholar using Colorado restaurant to create community change

For 20-years, Greenhouse Scholars has been creating young leaders with an eye toward making lasting change in low-income communities. The program picks the highest performing students from the lowest resourced communities and starts working with them in their senior year of high school. The students get college scholarship money, but they also get mentors, seminars, and workshops that help them navigate the high education system. 

"We surround them with all the things that they don't have to be successful to change the paradigm from 9 out of 10 not graduating to 95-percent of them graduating," said Peter Burridge, Founder and CEO of Greenhouse Scholars. "Part of our secret sauce is to find the people that are predisposed to create positive lasting change in the world, and so the people we're working with are the most impressive role models that you've ever met." 

Greenhouse Scholars has the Whole Person College Program for college students, then the Young Leaders Program for young professionals, and the Whole Community Program for lasting leadership in the community. The ultimate goal is to create lasting generational change for families and their communities. 

"So, we have completely changed the trajectories of hundreds and hundreds of families. So now a family dynamic where nobody went to college, so now all of the kids of our alums are on track to go to college. Going back into low-income high schools and mapping a journey for them. People who didn't understand that they could go to college, or they could go to trade school now we're in those schools talking to them...our alums talking to them about how their path could be different," Burridge explained. 

Helena Cappon is among those Greenhouse Scholar alums. 

"Helena is amazing. She's incredible, and she's a great example of what all of our alums and scholars look like," Burridge said. 

Cappon recently opened a pizza & ice cream parlor in Walsenburg, a small town in southern Colorado. 

"My fiancé is from here. He's fifth generation Walsenburg -- has had family here since the town was settled," Cappon explained. 

Together they had food service experience and decided that a pizza and ice cream shop could be the foundation for a bigger impact. 

"We are not just a pizza shop. We're a catalyst for change in a growing community, and the way that we really try to live that truth is by creating all kinds of community engagement," Cappon told CBS News Colorado. 

Cappon got a taste for how a business can impact the surrounding community during her 10-years working for Little Man Ice Cream in Denver during high school and college. 

"Little Man is a business that focuses on serving so much more than a scoop of ice cream. They do a lot of philanthropy both in their local community and in their global community, as well," Cappon said. 

But that philosophy really hit home when she started working with Greenhouse Scholars. 

"I definitely found going to college a challenge just based on our income level. It was something that my parents were not going to be able to help me with...at least financially," Cappon said. "Once you get there especially as a low-income student, from a background that was very different from my peers. I was struggling. I had a very difficult time keeping up in classes and just feeling like I could fit in and achieve this thing that i wanted to do." 

Greenhouse Scholars provided Cappon with the tuition money she needed, but they also paired her with a mentor, helped her to network with other students in her same position, and included her in enrichment workshops and talks all the way through graduation. 

"It was just such a profound experience that just really gave me that extra feeling of confidence that I needed before I started every school year," Cappon said. 

When Cappon and her fiancé came up with the idea to turn a 1960's gas station into a restaurant, Greenhouse Scholars was there for her again, this time with its Young Leaders Program. The couple were able to get seed money, new mentors, networking opportunities, and business advice. 

"Seeing how Greenhouse kind of takes the whole person and their community together really gave us a perspective that I don't think I would have had without them," Cappon explained. 

Gub Gub's Pizza and Ice Cream was born. That's right, the restaurant is named Gub Gub's. 

"Gub Gub is my cat," Cappon said. "We've had her for 14 years and she's kind of the family pride and joy. We love her very much. She was named after Gub Gub the pig from the original Dr. Doolittle book series of 1930."

Since it opened in September 2024, Gub Gub's has become a place where friends and neighbors come together. It's also an economic driver in the small town, employing 20 people.

"Not to mention just creating another space on our Main Street that can drive foot traffic and walkability. These things that lots of small towns have that we are really working on developing," Cappon added. 

Gub Gub's is more than a new restaurant, it's a major step toward changing Walsenburg into a destination where tourists want to spend more time.  It's also changed the lives of one young couple. 

"My heart has been so full since we opened our doors for the first time. It has been truly such an incredible experience to have the fortune to build something like this with everyone that I know and love," Cappon said. 

LINK: Greenhouse Scholars