Wells Charles Pettis wasn't expecting to end up at The Center on Colfax.
The 19-year-old, born and raised in South Texas and now attending the University of Denver, accidentally typed in the wrong address on Uber on his way to a meeting. The driver dropped him off three miles away from his intended destination, one block away from The Center.
Seeing the wrong dropoff as a sign, Wells, a cisgender gay man, walked through the doors for the first time and was met with what he felt he needed: kindness.
"It's a crucial resource for people to make themselves feel heard," Wells reflected, "to get themselves in a place with other people of the same mindset, identity, sexuality."
He joined the West of 50 Open Art Studio — a program for people over 50 — and said he was welcomed with open arms as a young man.
"It wasn't weird at all, they were happy to include someone young and I got to spend the morning learning from those in a different generation," he said. "And we need more of that."
For Wells, The Center wasn't the destination he planned — but it was exactly the community he needed.