Joy Brandt and her husband Jack were headed to Golden after Jack had accepted a position at the First National Bank in Golden. Driving through Nebraska decades ago with nowhere yet to stay, they stopped for gas and a stranger told them to look up Heine Foss at the Foss Company once they reached Colorado. They never met Foss that day, but we soon became friends.

It's Joy whose fingerprints run deepest through Golden Civic Foundation's history. She has served as a volunteer, board member, president, and advisor for more than three decades — including helping organize GCF's first gala in 1975 — and still serves today as a board advisor.

Away from GCF, Joy built her real estate career on a simple standard: showing up for what her customers need. A fifty-eight-year resident of Golden, she's a licensed broker with RE/MAX Alliance in Golden and has sold homes in Golden and the surrounding area for 47 years.

Her civic footprint runs wider still. Joy has been involved with GURA, Golden's Parks and Recreation efforts, and the Downtown Redevelopment Committee. She's past chair of the Golden Chamber of Commerce's Ambassadors — she still has the gold jacket — a Chamber director, past president of Leadership Golden Alumni, and a board member of the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the city's Golden Parks and Recreation, she helped put a community recreation center on the ballot in the 1980s. It initially failed, but finally passed by a narrow margin and the Golden Community Center was built in 1993-94. A Golden fixture today, alongside Fossil Trace Golf Course, which won its own vote by a similarly slim margin.

Jack has been involved with the Leadership Golden Steering Committee, member and past President of the Golden Chamber of Commerce, founding Trustee and past President of what is now known as the Golden Welcome Center.

That decades-long commitment earned Joy and Jack the Golden Chamber of Commerce's Civic Award in 1990 and the Golden Landmarks Association's Living Landmark Award in 2018.

Jack sums up how the two of them think about all of it: "We were put on this earth to help people." That belief runs through their work with the Golden Welcome Center, their church, — alongside Joy's decades with Golden Civic Foundation.

August is Make a Will Month at GCF. It's a fitting moment to consider, as Joy has for more than fifty years, what we each leave for Golden's next chapter.