Bluff Lake Nature Center Awarded $15,000 Rose Community Foundation Grant
Press Contact: Leila Regan-Porter leila@blufflake.org
For Immediate Release
Denver, Colo. – Bluff Lake Nature Center has been awarded a $15,000 Recovery & Reimagining Funding Opportunity grant from Rose Community Foundation.
“This funding will enable us to strengthen and create so many partnerships to ensure that our programming is serving our entire community through true collaborative efforts,” says Rachel Hutchens, Executive Director at Bluff Lake Nature Center. “We are so grateful to be awarded such a meaningful grant that will truly further our mission.”
Bluff Lake’s holistic approach to conservation and education combines programs and outreach with a focus on making nature experiences accessible and welcoming to communities that are often met with barriers to the outdoors.
“Rose Community Foundation is excited to support Bluff Lake Nature Center’s efforts to make the outdoors more accessible to those furthest from opportunity,” said Maria Torres, the Foundation’s Associate Program Officer. “As our region begins to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical that nonprofits like Bluff Lake are empowered to reimagine a more equitable and inclusive Greater Denver.”
In efforts to ensure that all our neighbors’ needs are represented, Bluff Lake is undertaking conversations and collaborations with community organizations that are serving local BIPOC audiences to adapt and create new programs.
“We want to encourage people to feel comfortable, confident, included, and empowered to explore the outdoors,” says Hutchens. “We are reaching more audiences and increasing their agency and ownership of the outdoors right here in the city by showing that nature can be accessible in their own backyard.”
About Rose Community Foundation:
Founded in 1995, Rose Community Foundation strives to advance inclusive, engaged and equitable Greater Denver communities through values-driven philanthropy. The Foundation envisions a thriving region strengthened by its diversity and generosity, and utilizes grantmaking, advocacy, donor engagement and community leadership to advance this aspiration.
About Bluff Lake:
Bluff Lake Nature Center educates individuals to be engaged, resilient, and curious; conserves a natural area in the city; furthers equity in outdoor access; and nurtures the health and well-being of communities and ecosystems.
Bluff Lake is a nonprofit agency that owns and manages a unique urban wildlife refuge and outdoor classroom in Denver. The refuge is home to an abundance of animals and native plants which thrive in a variety of habitats. Bluff Lake is Denver’s largest open space managed as native habitat, and Denver’s only nonprofit nature center. We rely solely on community support.
Tens of thousands of visitors, including over 8,000 area school children, come to Bluff Lake each year to enjoy a few moments of solace and connection to nature or to take part in one of our scheduled programs or events. The site is open 365 days a year, sunrise to sunset, for free. We hope you will visit us soon!
