April was quite the busy month here at the Greenway Foundation, as earth month always should be! Not only were we doing our regular thing working towards a cleaner South Platte River for all of Denver, but we also got to host and table at lots of awesome events through our SPREE programs. We take a great deal of pride in our environmental education department, and so when there is a chance to hang out with kids and talk about beavers we are all in! Here is a little recap of each event and well as some of the highlights of the events!
Beaver Bonanza – Cole Neighborhood Block Party
For our first event this month, we kicked it off with a Beaver Bonanza at the Cole Block Party April 16th Easter weekend with our partners! For the event, the SPREE team brought all of the Beaver goods to teach families of the Cole neighborhood all about these awesome creatures and more including our infamous beaver pelt, a replica of beavers skull, as well as pin the tail on the beaver! While pin the tail on the beaver is immensely fun, the biggest hit was our game “Whose Scat is That?” in which kids/families
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would match replicas of Colorado animal scat with what animal may have left it behind. But if scat wasn’t your thing, we also brought along samples of different macroinvertebrates found in the South Platte River and a “Build Your Own Macro” game to teach about these crucial pollution indicators in our riverways! Not only did we have a lot of teaching tools and games (with prizes of course), but we also brought along some crafts to instill some more fun and creativity! Kiddos could choose to make a nature wand, or a clothes pin butterfly – just something to remind them of the wonders of the natural world!
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Our table was bustling this whole event with curious families – it was so awesome to see! Over 300 people attended this event, and it brought so many smiles to the SPREE team to chat with so many awesome kids and families! While we enjoyed hanging out at our table and helping make nature wands, the event finished off with an egg hunt of epic proportions!
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Family Stewardship Day – Earth Day Trash Pick Up!
To celebrate Earth Day, the Greenway Foundation along with our partners hosted a trash clean up for families to volunteer to help clean up the Cherry Creek and South Platte Rivers: to say this event was a success is an understatement. There were over 250 volunteers working super hard to clean up our rivers! Some even went at far as to wade into the river and collect trash and debris that has accumulated in our rivers over the
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course of the winter. All this hard work resulted in over 238 gallon sized bags of trash removed from the river all within four hours! At the Greenway Foundation, we love hosting events like these because you can make sure a large impact in such a sort amount of time with dedication and team work, something we saw a lot of at this event!
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After working super hard with our family volunteers, we enjoyed some more time by our super clean river playing games, creating crafts, and overall teaching about the importance of our rivers in Colorado! Families could check out our beaver pelts, old snakes skin, play “whose scat is that?”, pin the tail on the beaver, win prizes, and more! We want to give a special thanks to not only our partners that help make this event possible, but of course the volunteers the came out and worked super hard to clean up the river!
Westwood Block Party – April 30th
To wrap up our April events, we finished off by tabling at the Westwood block party! With 75 attendees, Chompers and all the usual suspects were there to help teach families all about the important creatures that call the South Platte River home! Of course pin the tail on the beaver and “Whose Scat is That?” were hits among the kids, but we also saw loads of incredible crafts being made and prizes being won! It was so awesome to finish up our April events in the Westwood neighborhood and our SPREE team has a blast chatting with families and teaching kids about our wonderful South Platte River and all the things you can find in it.
Overall we want to give a big thank you so our partners for putting on these awesome events for us to participate in! Community is so important, and this month at Greenway we really got to feel the power of our community! If you didn’t make it to an event keep an eye on our social media for info on more events coming up!
Overall we want to give a big thank you so our partners for putting on these awesome events for us to participate in! Community is so important, and this month at Greenway we really got to feel the power of our community! If you didn’t make it to an event keep an eye on our social media for info on more events coming up!
The Place We Call Home – Happy Earth Day!