Vendor Profile: February 2020
Left to Right: Jerome Cotton, Alvin Cotton AKA “Mustafa”, John Alexander. Credit: Justin Canales
A Tale of Three Brothers
By Elisabeth Monaghan
It is rare when Jerome Cotton, John Alexander, or Alvin Cotton AKA “Mustafa” are in the Denver VOICE office at the same time, but during the 2019 holiday party for our vendors, we were able to gather them long enough to take a photo and learn how all three wound up as Denver VOICE vendors.
Jerome Cotton was the first in the family to vend. “I had just come out of prison and couldn’t find a job,” Jerome explained. “One day, I was downtown, putting in applications, and I started spotting these dudes on the 16th Street Mall vending the VOICE.” After purchasing a copy, Jerome asked the vendor how he could get involved. “The guy told me what the procedures [to become a vendor] were, and I thought I’d give it a try,” he said.
Jerome accompanied the vendor to the VOICE office, signed on as a vendor, and received 10 free incentive papers. This was back when the VOICE sold for $1, so the $150 Jerome earned his first day convinced him he had found the ideal job.
It didn’t take him long to figure out the best spots to vend the VOICE. “I worked at a couple of gas stations and on the Auraria Campus, where I was making $150-200 a day.” On weekends, he made as much as $300 vending the paper.
Not long after, John, who is the oldest of the three brothers, also became a vendor.
“We ran into each other one day at the Burger King across from the Auraria Campus,” said John. “I was selling my artwork, and Jerome was out vending papers. He bought me lunch, and as we ate, he told me about the Denver VOICE.”
What caught John’s attention during their conversation was the way his brother spoke about the money that he made. After seeing his brother struggle for years with drugs and go in and out of prison, John now saw a happy man who was making an honest living and talking positively about his future.
Curious, John asked Jerome what it would take for him to become a vendor, too. Jerome explained how the organization made it easy to get involved. “They just want to help,” Jerome told him. “You don’t need to have an ID or driver’s license before they’ll hire you. They’ll even give you free papers to give you a jumpstart.”
John left their meeting intrigued. A few days later, he, who at the time was heavily into crack cocaine, was looking over his finances and discovered he had miscalculated his earnings from the artwork he’d sold the day before.
“I was sitting there at the crack house broke,” John said. “Then I remembered what my brother told me about this thing called the Denver VOICE. I wasn’t too far from there, so I walked to the office. It was early enough in the day that I thought I’d sign up, get my 10 free papers and have enough money at the end of the day to buy more frames for my artwork.”
John figured with the money he earned from selling his framed art, he would find the nearest dope dealer, get high, and start the process over. That was 12 years ago. After his first day as a Denver VOICE vendor, he never returned to the crack house.
Today, John is one of the paper’s top vendors. Frequently, he is asked to speak to classes and organizations about his experience living on the streets and his recovery from drug addiction. He is also one of two people tapped to be a Peer Navigator as part of a new program the VOICE has launched.
This past September, Mustafa, the youngest of the three brothers, also became a vendor. While I wasn’t able to speak directly to Mustafa about his experiences with the VOICE, John expressed how proud he is of his brother.
“He is in a much better place since he started vending,” John said. “He is setting goals and meeting them, and he takes pride in being a successful vendor who is basically his own boss.”
John, Jerome, and Mustafa faced various obstacles, but by finding their way to the VOICE, each has discovered the benefits of accountability and self-worth. To get there, they had to make difficult choices and set aside habits and behaviors that hindered them, but by making these choices, they now live happier, healthier lives.
As Jerome explained it, becoming a vendor for the VOICE has been a surprising blessing for each of the brothers.
“I was a bad actor,” said Jerome. “I wasn’t reliable and spent my time shooting, snorting, and smoking drugs. I was out there, and God just pulled me back in and said, ‘Hey, take this Denver VOICE and run with it.’” And, with his brothers following closely behind, that’s exactly what he did. ■