Colorado’s throwback license plates — especially the cool black ones — are powering a new state office created to help people with disabilities get jobs and live independently. 

The Colorado Disability Opportunity Office, called the “C-Doo” among government officials, will give out $5 million this fiscal year to organizations working to support people with disabilities. The office was created by the legislature in June and its inaugural director, Danny Combs, is the father of a son with autism and founder of a trade school in Englewood that teaches young people with autism how to become auto mechanics, welders, carpenters and electricians.

The office gets $25 per retro license plate sold. Those include the long-popular green mountains on a white sky, as well as the reintroduced white COLORADO on a solid blue background, on a red background, and the most popular, on a black background. The three plates, dating to 1914, 1915 and 1945, had been retired and were brought back into circulation in 2021. 

About 20% of Coloradans have one or more disabilities, according to the new office. And programs that provide assistance are spread across multiple state agencies, including the state education department, the health and human services department, and the state agency that oversees Medicaid government insurance. The goal of CDOO is to coordinate all those efforts to create more efficiency and less overlap, as well as fill in the gaps where services aren’t covered. 

Read more from Jennifer Brown at ColoradoSun.com.