The Brooklyn Nets have never needed a scouting staff like they do this year. As every Nets fan knows, following their two trades with the Knicks and Rockets on June 25, they’ll have four first rounders and likely two seconds in 2025. Moreover, with a rebuild/tank underway, the Nets could wind up with the overall No. 1. So the stakes are high.

On Wednesday, Mike Scotto noted again that the staff is in flux. He tweeted that Drew Nicholas, who’s been the director of scouting for the Denver Nuggets the past two seasons, will be joining the Nets staff…

No details on what Nicholas role will be in Brooklyn. His Twitter account lists him simply as a “scout” for the Nets.

It was the third time that Scotto has reported on staff changes. Last month, he noted that Andre Barrett, the former Seton Hall great, has also been added…

Earlier, Scotto reported that Oronde Taliaferro, who’s been a scout for Brooklyn, is joining the Phoenix Suns as the director of scouting…

The scouting changes are the latest personnel moves reported — but not yet made official — in Brooklyn’s front office.

Jim McDonnell, who has been an assistant video coordinator for the Nets the past two years, has moved into the head spot. Travis Bader who had been the head video coordinator is now an assistant coach with the Nets.

Makar Gevorkian who replaced long-time Nets staffer Matt Tellem as capologist after Tellem left for the Suns, has also inherited Tellem’s title, vice president of basketball operations for alignment and strategic planning.

Big jobs still be announced include assistant GM and co-head of the performance team, left open by the departures of Jeff Peterson and Les Gelis.

DENVER, August 21, 2024–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Lemonade Day, a well-established national non-profit organization that empowers young children through an experiential entrepreneurship program, is expanding. The organization announced that it is establishing a Lemonade Day Chapter in Denver, Colorado to bring this empowering experience to more kids. Since 2007, Lemonade Day has served more than 1.5 million young resilient children, fueling an 85% increase in their growth mindset.

“Lemonade Day introduces kids in grades K-8^th to entrepreneurship by wrapping the simple, yet profound experience of a lemonade stand with important lessons and learnings,” explained Nicole Cassier-Mason, chief executive officer of Lemonade Day National. “By planting a seed of entrepreneurship in children, we nurture the skills, agency, and growth mindset needed for their future. We envision a world where every child’s innate potential is unleashed through entrepreneurship, inspiring them to lead, innovate, and positively impact their communities and themselves.”

Transforming the classic lemonade stand into a dynamic entrepreneurial adventure, Lemonade Day empowers every child with the tools and confidence to launch their own business, learn valuable skills, and taste sweet success. Crafting a rich tapestry of learning, the organization’s program weaves entrepreneurship, financial savvy, and life skills into every child’s journey, turning the lemonade stand into a fun classroom without walls. To strengthen the backbone of Lemonade Day, its local leadership team empowers partners and philanthropic supporters with the resources and insights needed to fuel a youth entrepreneurship ecosystem, weaving a network of support that propels youth, their families, and the entire community forward.

It has been proven that communities that rally behind Lemonade Day benefit as much as the kids and their adult mentors do. “Our goal is to mobilize civic leaders, volunteers, businesses, youth organizations, schools, and faith-based institutions to champion youth entrepreneurship,” stated Carolina Lizzio, Lemonade Day’s Denver Market Manager. “Together, we inspire citizens to rally behind every lemonade stand, seeding future success and civic engagement.”

To kick off the national organization’s expansion into Denver, Lemonade Day will be hosting a youth entrepreneurship workshop called “Lemonade Day University” (a.k.a. “LemonU”), for 150 kids at Young Americans Bank on Saturday, September 28^th, 9:00am to 2:00pm.

At LemonU, kids will be taught how to set goals, develop a business plan and budget, and create a brand and marketing plan. They will learn about safe site location, health sanitation, and customer service to maximize profit. Kids will pitch their plan to secure a $30-$50 micro-loan investment and will also have the chance to win free supplies and materials to help put their plan in action to achieve their dreams. Trained instructors will coach youth on how to spend some of their hard-earned money on themselves; save some and invest in their futures by opening a bank account, and share some with a charity of their choice. Graduates of LemonU will leave the workshop armed and ready to launch their business and have a public selling experience – on a day of their family’s choosing.

With incredible support from the Daniels Fund and Adolph Coors Foundation, Lemonade Day is able to offer the program for free to all Denver participants via these options:

• Lemonade Day University at Young Americans Bank – This free 1-day in-person workshop is for children in grades 3^rd to 8^th grade. Click here to register online and secure your child’s spot. Space is limited to 150 participants. If the workshop is full, a waitlist can be joined.

• My Lemonade Day App – Parents can directly access the Lemonade Day curriculum via this digital platform. The My Lemonade Day app provides an animated, interactive experience where kids have access to a series of lessons that step them through the process of owning and operating their own lemonade business. It can be downloaded for iOS and android platforms and does not require Wi-Fi for use. Caring adults mentoring their child will follow a 2-step process to register youth and unlock their access to the program. Mentor training materials can be found in the Mentor Portal.

• Youth Workbooks and Mentor Guides – Schools, youth organizations, community centers, and churches can contact the Denver Market Manager to learn about partnership opportunities for the 2024/2025 school year, which include free customized training and implementation guides, resources, and extension programs.

Help your child kickstart the school year and watch your young entrepreneur flourish as they turn concepts into reality, build confidence, and develop leadership skills that last a lifetime. Anyone and everyone can be involved in Lemonade Day! Young entrepreneurs with lemonade stands need mentors, investors, business partners, great locations, and customers. Donors and volunteers are also needed to make Lemonade Day a success, and sponsorship opportunities are still available. Join us today and witness the magic that happens when kids are introduced to the power of entrepreneurship!

Learn more about Lemonade Day in this quick video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnUUJ5R_Zy8&t=2s

Find out more information or register for the Lemonade Day Denver program by visiting: https://lemonadeday.org/denver

About Lemonade Day

Lemonade Day is a national non-profit dedicated to teaching youth in grades K-8 important business, financial, character-building, and life skills that are the key ingredients to having an entrepreneurial growth mindset. Playing a vital role in the education and workforce ecosystem, Lemonade Day operates in 104 licensed affiliate markets. Over 18 years, the organization has immersed over 1.5 MILLION kids (and counting) in its experiential entrepreneurship learning program – kids who collectively have earned over $352.5 MILLION in sales, generating $270 MILLION in profit, and $142.5 MILLION in donations. Visit lemonadeday.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240821392385/en/

Contacts

Carolina Lizzio, Lemonade Day Denver Market Manager
(720) 702-3204 or carolina@lemonadeday.org

Michael Webb and James Peters, best friends since third grade, sit on their e-bikes and lean against the brick wall of a vacant storefront. 

They glare at the Capitol Hill King Soopers where, they say, workers just kicked them out.

“I’m too depressed to talk,” Peters says.

The whole ordeal started at 6:07 a.m., the day before, on a Monday. Peters had put all of his change — all the money he has in this world — into the store’s Coinstar machine. 

The machine printed out a receipt, and he took it to the counter to collect his $111.

“But it was 6:07 a.m., and they don’t cash the vouchers until 8 a.m.,” Peters says.   

He had a court appointment in Aurora that morning, so he left the store and came back on Tuesday with Webb. But when they arrived, a worker explained that they were too late. They should have come back on Monday — receipts need to be redeemed the day they’re printed.

The men felt the store was robbing them of $111 they desperately needed, and there was nothing they could do about it. 

Peters’ temper boiled, and the store employees kicked him out for good.

Staff at the store declined to comment on this story. 

“They robbed my brother,” says Webb, who called Coinstar on behalf of his friend. “I was on hold forever, but when they answered this super nice woman gave me a code and just made sure the transaction was right.”

Since Peters had been 86’d from the store, Webb went into King Soopers with the receipt and the code. Six people, he says, surrounded him to kick him out. He ignored them and walked to the counter. 

“The poor man working there was going, ‘Oh my God, this guy’s back,’” Webb says. “But I gave him the code, and we got the money.”

The $111 was in their hands again. To them, it was a fortune. And it was so little at the same time. 

“How is this all the money I’ve got in the world,” wonders Peters.

Not that long ago, Peters was thriving. Now, he’s crashed.

Peters is a master tiler and the owner of Trinity Tiling. For 19 years, he’s done custom tiling jobs for Denver homeowners. 

Owning his own business, he made more money than he needed. 

“Two, three years ago, I was renting a house out in Aurora in Southshore — $3,300 a month,” he says. “And that was chump change to me at the time — like easy. I had 10 grand for first and last month’s rent and a deposit. I was living like a baller, as they would say, and now I find myself all the way at the bottom.”

When he had the money, he spent it furiously. Then, he split with his wife. The pandemic and inflation disrupted the construction industry. Customers quit calling for tiling jobs. 

These days, his business hardly earns a dime. 

“I bill at $125, and with that, I can barely afford overhead to live in my parents’ basement for free,” Peters says. 

His has his belongings locked in a storage unit. A rodent has the full run of the place.

“It’s in there eating through the golf club bags and eating the seat off my dirt bikes and my boots for my wakeboards and bindings and snowboard boots,” Peters says. “It’s all just trashed.” 

For that kind of storage, he pays $400 a month — a bill he’s not been able to afford. 

“I’m so broke right now because I haven’t had work,” Peters says. “I can’t even get into my storage unit right now. So it’s like, all my s*** is in the hands of God — me getting money before the first of next month. Is all my s*** going to be gone? Or am I going to live to die another day with that deal?”

Over the years, he’s struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and he recently relapsed after five years of sobriety.

“I don’t even eat anymore,” he says. “I don’t work out anymore. I don’t do s***. Literally, I’m giving up on life. That’s how bad it’s been. I’m still alive, unfortunately, but I almost accomplished my mission the other day with an overdose. But my baby’s mama called 911, and they came and got me and took me to the hospital.” 

For the third time in his life, he kicked fentanyl cold turkey, sweating and suffering in his bed alone. 

He’s been sober for a week. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Webb says. “I don’t have anybody else.” 

Webb, too, has struggled with addiction, though his housing situation has been improving.

When he was 12 years old, he says, he accidentally burned down a post office. 

“That pretty much screwed my life up from the get-go,” he says. “Drugs and alcohol happened very early after that.” 

He’s lived all over Colorado, from Parker to Castle Rock to Loveland to Fort Collins. But Denver felt most like home, and all his life, he’s wanted to live downtown.

“I always wanted to live downtown, until I was homeless downtown, and that’s not how I wanted to live down here,” he says. 

When he was 25 years old, he lived outside under an overhang at the Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality, a church at 13th Avenue and Williams Street. 

During the day, he would hide his belongings in a nearby bush while he worked in construction cleanup for $50 a day at Ready Labor. At night, he’d drink at the Satire. Then he’d go back to the church to sleep, hoping his belongings would still be there. Often, they weren’t. 

• Homelessness is up in Denver, but fewer people are sleeping outdoors than the year before

Now 38, he’s finally getting his life back together. He’s spent multiple stints in hardscrabble rehabs. He’s relapsed and suffered through withdrawals that led to brutal seizures. He found some stability in the Denver Rescue Mission’s New Life Program, where he stayed sober, kept a job and eventually earned a car upon graduating.

And he recently lived for nine months in a safe-occupancy site, where he slept in a heated tent with a refrigerator. Sure, he was still homeless, but at least he managed to find some stability.

Through government subsidies, he got a RadPower e-bike. Tired of driving, he sold his car and enjoyed cruising through the city. Then he crashed into a fire hydrant going 18 miles an hour and broke his leg — a tibial plateau fracture. He received 50 staples in his leg and needed to use a wheelchair.  

In the spring, Webb connected with a volunteer at the Saint Francis Center who helped him find a studio at the Colburn Hotel and Apartments, the housing above the classic Denver dive Charlie Brown’s. 

For the first time in his adult life, Webb is living near downtown, in a home in Capitol Hill. Peters moved his belongings in for him. Webb used crutches to get to his fourth-floor apartment. Without Peters, he doesn’t know how he would have pulled off the move. 

“Man, he’s done a lot for me,” Webb says. “If I didn’t have him, I wouldn’t be around. I’d be gone. Not gone from Denver, gone from the world. It’s good to have a friend, a brother.”

Webb says Denver has programs that helped him out along the way.

“When I first became homeless, when I was 25, I really dug into resources and really researched,” Webb says. 

There are many homeless people who go without food, and as he sees it, that’s entirely unnecessary. 

“There’s all kinds of places that give out food and stuff,” he says. 

• Aurora booted hundreds from an apartment building. We followed one mother of three as she figured out what to do next

Medicaid saved him when he had to go into treatment for his alcoholism and when he broke his leg on his bike. 

“If you’re homeless, you can get Medicaid,” Webb says. “And Medicaid is the best insurance that you can possibly have. I’ve had Medicaid. It’s saved my a** multiple times through alcoholism. I’ve been to treatment centers. Medicaid has saved my butt with medical stuff.” 

Webb says the investment in his health is ultimately good for society. 

“I’ve done a lot of work through my years,” he says. “I feel like I’ve worked enough to feel like I’m not ripping off the taxpayer. I pay taxes every year, so, I’m damned grateful for it … Denver’s been pretty terrible, but pretty good to me, honestly. Like, when it comes down to it, Denver’s been wonderful to me. I mean, I’m lucky to be where I’m at.”

But Medicaid hasn’t worked for Peters. His prior income has disqualified him from having the coverage.

Peters broke his leg in a motorcycle accident five years back.

It took him a year, walking on his broken leg, to finally seek treatment. 

The doctors asked him, “How did you do that?” 

“Drugs,” he replied. 

He felt like he didn’t have any other choice and says he couldn’t afford “millions of dollars in medical debt.” 

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Webb says. 

Kyle Harris/Denverite

“I have two abscessed teeth,” Peters says. “And I can’t get approved for Medicaid because of my taxes in prior years.”

He reaches into the pocket of his cargo short looking for his Orajel, and realizes it’s missing. He can barely open his mouth.

“This guy’s worked his whole life, hard work,” Webb says. “He’s the hardest worker … It sucks. His teeth are blowing up, and he can’t get them fixed right now. There’s a lot wrong with this place. It’s hard to keep happy. It’s hard to smile all the time. It’s hard to be nice.” 

But being nice matters to both men. It’s something they see less and less of in Denver since the pandemic.

As they speak about how the city’s becoming tense, a man at a bus stop down the street screams at a woman in her car. He’s mad she’s blocking a bus that’s nowhere in sight. 

Even though Peters acknowledges the woman is parked illegally, he is appalled by the man’s behavior.

“Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt,” Peters says. “Be nice, too. You don’t know what they’re going through. They could be going through something 10 times worse than what you’re going through. They could have lost a parent this week and a parent last week. You don’t know. Be nice. Everyone doesn’t have to be so high-strung.” 

Peters is strong. He knows how to defend himself and has saved Webb from the sort of scraps people struggling with addiction find themselves in all too often. 

But, these days, Peters avoids confrontations. Even with the King Soopers workers who refused to give them their money, he and Webb helped each other stay grounded, he says. They worked to keep their cool as best they could, even as they felt robbed.

“Everyone looks at you like you want to fight,” Peters says. “It’s like, ‘I’ve got no interest in fighting. I want to buy donuts for my daughter and go back home.’”