The SPARKy Story

Changing lives through Creativity

In 1998 two local Telluride mothers, Jennie Franks and Katie Jewitt, filmed Soft Smoke, AIDS in the Rural West, in order to educate youth, both locally and nationally. SPARKy continued to make relevant, educational films, until in 2006 we created the Telluride Playwrights Festival. For a decade we brought professional actors, playwrights, and directors from major theatre companies all over the country to the beautiful San Juan Mountains of Colorado.

In its final year, the Telluride Playwrights Festival produced THE HISPANIC WOMEN’S PROJECT. A play written by Jennie Franks which told the true stories of Latinas in our community. This play launched SPARKy in a new direction. While we have always been an entity that encompasses art, theatre and education, this new chapter brought us a new focus, with new rewards. One that began with a promise.

To the women that told us their stories we promised that in the names of their mothers and grandmothers we would try and raise money to send young, local Latinas to college.