Blog Posts

SPREE's trees Holiday Camp Recap

10/25/2018

Holiday Camp is back in swing! On Friday, campers joined SPREE at Johnson Habitat Park for a day camp focused on trees. Trees make the air we breathe, but just what kind of trees grow around the South Platte River in Denver?

We started off the day investigating that question. Campers pointed out that there were lots of trees around camp, and when they looked closer they identified that we had both deciduous trees and evergreen trees. Deciduous trees lose their leaves, and were hard to identify- though our cottonwood trees have colorful attached leaves still! We were able to identify cottonwood trees, oaks, and box elder trees (by the helicopter seeds that are so much fun to toss in the air in fall!). The evergreen trees keep their needles all year so we were able to identify pine and spruce trees planted in our park!

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Fly Fishing with GLC & DTU

10/22/2018

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On Saturday, the Greenway Leadership Corps (GLC) woke up early to drive to Deckers, a popular fly fishing location along the South Platte River nestled near Pike National Forest. There, we met up with folks from Denver Trout Unlimited (DTU). DTU is the Denver branch of a nation-wide non-profit dedicated to the conservation of freshwater streams, rivers, and associated upland habitats for trout, salmon, other aquatic species, and people.

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River Rangers complete training, prepare to teach

10/19/2018

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Each school year, The Greenway Foundation works with ten juniors and seniors from KIPP Denver Collegiate High School. These students are selected to train as environmental educators through teaching on SPREE excursions, helping at a day of SPREE holiday camp, and participating in Greenway Leadership Corps (GLC) events.

Our new River Rangers just finished training with us at Johnson Habitat Park, where they will help at camps, and Overland Pond Park, where they will help teach all of the activities in our 5th grade excursions. Training included an overview of environmental education, their roles and responsibilities as interns, and several team building challenges where they had to communicate and work together to succeed. As you can see from the pictures above, they rose to the occasion.

The River Rangers will assist SPREE staff on four excursions during the school year. Their first one will be in two weeks, and we could not ask for a more excited and entertaining group of students to act as leaders and educators for 5th graders.

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first annual Youth Exploring Stewardship (YES) Conference

10/14/2018

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This past weekend was the first annual Youth Exploring Stewardship (YES) Conference. The conference was organized as a way to bring together high school aged students from the Front Range who are interested in environmental stewardship. The YES Conference was designed as a leadership experience, where youth leaders from around the Front Range can…

Participate in hands-on stewardship
Explore future academic and career opportunities in stewardship, environmental education, and conservation
Take their leadership skills to a new level
Meet new friends and have fun outside!

What was supposed to be a two-day experience with an overnight turned into a condensed, one-day event because of the snow that was expected on Sunday. We still managed to have a wonderful time, meeting lots of new people and learning a lot about the world of stewardship!

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Adopt-A-Park Update for 2018

10/14/2018

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Did you know that for several years The Greenway Foundation has adopted two parks along the South Platte River? In the course of the year, we've hosted service programs with third graders through our SPREE program, with high school students through our Greenway Leadership Corps (GLC) youth programs, and with adults through our large and small volunteer events.

Check out how many people have been involved and how many hours have been donated to our local parks!

A group of volunteers from Stantec who joined TGF for a clean up in September.

We still have a few more SPREE programs scheduled for this year, so our donated hours will continue to increase as the year goes on!

We also are able to work with organizations to create smaller volunteer programs throughout the year. Please contact our Volunteer and Events Director, Lauren Berent at lauren@greenwayfoundation.org to learn more about creating a program.

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Family Fishing Day- Where were the Fish?

10/1/2018

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95 people joined SPREE and Environmental Learning for Kids at our Family Fishing Day on Saturday, September 29th! Families learned the basics of fishing and casting, and then tried their luck in the pond. Most families only got some nibbles, but 2 lucky families were actually able to catch a fish! Even though the fish spent most of the day hiding; families were still able to practice make leaf art and seed bombs, learn about pollution with the Enviroscape, and eat some pizza!

A big Happy Birthday goes out to Cormac who brought his whole birthday party out to learn how to fish! And thank you for sharing your cupcakes!

Thanks to the Denver Parks and Recreation fishing program, every child who attended this event got to take their fishing pole home! Big thanks to Publication Printers and Denver Public Works for sponsoring this event, and making it possible.

To view all of the photos from the event, head over to our Facebook Page!

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GLC Ends Summer with Service and Recreation

9/26/2018

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The Greenway Leadership Corps (GLC) had a fun couple of events to finish off the summer and get going with the start of school!
In August, we met up at Grant Frontier Park to test our balance with Stand Up Paddleboarding - often known as SUPing. We all had a great time, and were fortunate enough to have the Colorado SUP Club there to share their gear and teach us the ins and outs of SUPing! After we got the hang of the boards, we moved back to land to clean up the park. We collected trash that we found around Grant Frontier, making the park cleaner and safer for future users!

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Volunteers help at our Fall South Platte Stewardship Days

9/25/2018

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Over 150 people came out to our 2018 Fall South Platte Stewardship Day presented by The DaVita Village, The Nature Conservancy, and Jacobs to volunteer in several public spaces along the South Platte River. On Saturday, September 22nd, volunteers spread 30 yards of mulch to protect existing plants, and collected 10 cubic yards of trash and invasive weeds. Thank you to Snooze for providing breakfast and Kauai for providing coffee! Check out the photos from the event here! Mark your calendars for our Spring South Platte Stewardship Day, which will be on May 4th, 2019.

On the same day at Johnson Habitat Park, 70 adults and children volunteered by picking up 15 bags of trash and removing 7 bags worth of weeds. After all the hard work, families participated in games and activities with our South Platte River Environmental Education (SPREE) Team. Check out the photos from the event here! Mark your calendars for our Spring Family Stewardship Day, which will be April 22nd, 2019.

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2018 Gala on the Bridge and After Party on the Bridge Recap

9/25/2018

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The 2018 Noble Energy on the Bridge presented by Revesco Properties and MillerCoors was a night dedicated to our urban waterways. Over 380 people came out to support The Greenway Foundation's mission! TGF also awarded the 2018 Hero of the River to The Denver Parks and Recreation River and Trails Team for their dedicated work in keeping our public spaces safe and clean. Thank you to all of the attendees and sponsors for making this event the most successful ever! Click here to view the photos on our Facebook Album.

The 2018 Blue Moon After Party on the Bridge presented by The Fang Law Firm was a big success under the big top tent! Over 450 people came to this year's circus themed event were dazzled by jugglers, silt-walkers and surprise aerial performances! Guests also enjoyed themed drink specials and food, and donated food from Fogo de Chao, and donated alcohol from Sazerac Company. The night wrapped up with silent disco and music from 3 DJs!

Click here to view the photos in our Facebook Album.

Did you miss the event this year? Buy your tickets to next year's event on September 13, 2019.

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Iconic Colorado At SPREE HQ Aug 13-17

8/17/2018

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This week of SPREE Summer camp was dedicated to learning all about the state symbols and icons of Colorado. Monday's focus was on Colorado's terrestrial state animals: the mammal, bird, and insect. One of the most well-known state symbols is our state mammal, the bighorn sheep! We made marionette sheep and practiced ramming their heads together! Colorado's state bird is the lark bunting. We learned about these beautiful and unique birds by building some model nests, looking around the park for their food (insects), and acting out some of the silly and unique moves they make! We wrapped up the day by learning about the Colorado hairstreak butterfly. It is bright purple and orange on the inside of its wings, and camouflaged with eyespots on the outside!

Tuesday's focus was on aquatic (or semi-aquatic) creatures. The state fish is the greenback cutthroat trout, which was once thought to be extinct in our state! It was later rediscovered and then made Colorado's state fish. Campers learned about trout habitat, and explored the River for signs that trout could live there. The state amphibian is the tiger salamander- it is found in all of Colorado's counties! We played games to help us learn about their metamorphic life cycle and how they can regrow their tails if it gets nibbled off by a predator! We also learned about their porous and slimy skin by making our own slime! The state reptile is also semi-aquatic, the painted turtle. Campers explored what it means to be cold blooded, learned the differences between terrestrial and aquatic turtles, and crafted little mini turtles to take home.

Wednesday was all about plants! The state flower is rocky mountain columbine and the state grass is blue grama. Campers planted seeds of each of these, and made a flower press use for drying and studying other Colorado plants in the future! While learning about the claret cup cactus, campers dissected a piece of cactus, learned about cactus anatomy, made a model cactus, and played games to demonstrate how cacti gain and retain water in arid environments. Lastly, campers learned about the state tree, the blue spruce. We found a blue spruce in the park and learned how to identify it, and learned identification tricks for several other types of Colorado trees as well.

For our field day on Thursday, we went to nearby Vanderbilt park. We explored the pond and park, identified native plants and animals, and played lots of games about native Colorado animals!

Our week wrapped up with Colorado rocks and fossils. After learning the differences between rocks, minerals and gemstones, we could learn which ones are Colorado state symbols: yule marble, rhodochrosite, and aquamarine respectively. Campers learned how these rocks form, played rock bingo in the park, and made their own rock "friend" to take home. Finally, we made it to learning about our state fossil, the stegosaurus! We used silhouettes to make a skeleton, studied the natural history of Colorado dinsosaurs, and learned about dino adaptations. As always, we finished our week with a graduation ceremony!