Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the South Platte River Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion as the South Platte River Committee starts now.

Welcome everyone.

There we go.

Welcome everyone.

Thanks for joining us.

This is the South Platte Corridor Committee.

There we go.

There we go.

On August 27th.

Thank you for joining us.

Before we uh welcome our presentation guests, let's do a round of introductions.

I'll start with myself.

Councilwoman Torres, I represent West Denver District 3.

It's perfect.

What I mean, but that's lucky district seven.

Darrell Watson, finding District 9.

Excellent.

Thank you all so much.

And to our guests, go ahead and introduce yourselves and go ahead and get started.

Thank you so much.

I'm Ryan Aids.

I'm the executive director for the Greenway Foundation.

I'm Becky Harkins.

I'm the education director of the Greenway Foundation.

We have a couple of our other staff members here for support in the crowd with us as well.

So we'll introduce them maybe at the end.

But thanks for having us here today.

We've been looking forward to this presentation for a while now.

And I just want to start by saying thank you for having this committee.

As the Greenway Foundation, it's a dream come true to have a committee dedicated to the South Platte River.

So thank you guys for the work that you're doing, keeping it a priority for the city.

And it means a lot to us.

So thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Today we plan to just give you a little bit of history on the Greenway Foundation, a little bit of our background, kind of current events, what we've been up to, what we're working on.

And our goal is today that we all leave here.

You guys know what we're all about and what we do.

Okay.

So last year we celebrated our 50th anniversary, and as part of our 50th anniversary celebration, we embarked on a strategic planning effort with our board and our staff.

Out of that strategic planning effort, we came out with an updated mission and vision statement that you can see on the screen there, and an updated tagline that really just we tried to distill everything that we do and everything that we're about into one tagline, and we felt like we did that with a cleaner, safer, more accessible river for all.

And we really stress the for all piece of that tagline.

An additional part of the strategic planning effort were three pillars that we decided we wanted our work to focus on.

And those three pillars were community engagement, education, and stewardship.

And we'll talk in depth about each of those.

Before we go into the three pillars, I did want to share an updated an updated return on investment study that we recently completed.

So this study was completed by an independent third-party consultant, Summit Economics.

It's an updated version of a study that we originally completed in 2017.

And we updated this to be reflective of values through 2024.

What you see on the screen there is the whole report distilled down into a one-pager, trying to get the highlights out of that.

And there's a couple of things that I wanted to highlight out of that for you guys today.

One being the study area for the return on investment study was residential parcels within a half a mile out of the river all the way through Denver.

And in 1974, when the work of the Greenway Foundation started, properties that were within that boundary were worth 45% less than values out or than properties outside of that boundary.

And today they're worth 84% higher on average.

It just shows what it means when you invest in a river, in tangible benefits.

Numbers to that, it it equates to an additional 61.3 million dollars annually, an additional property tax, an additional 40 and a half million dollars to Denver Public Schools based on the investment that's been done in that river in the river.

I bring that up at the beginning because projects that invest in the quality and the health of our river are the right thing to do morally and environmentally, but this shows that it's also the right thing to do economically.

And right now we have an opportunity with our partnership with U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers and the Waterway Resiliency Program to invest in our river in a way that we've never done before.

That represents the largest single investment in the South Platte River in Denver's history.

It reduces flood risk for nearby residents of Weird Gulch.

It restores critical habitat for wildlife.

And when the EPA was here in January, you guys may remember that they said the number one way to increase water quality in an urban environment is habitat restoration, and that project does that.

So we all want to clean a river, we all want better water, we want cleaner water, safer water, more accessible water.

And the waterway resiliency program does that.

So that is that is my plug for the importance that the Greenway Foundation feels in that project.

I think with that, I believe I'm gonna turn it over to our education director to talk about one of our first pillars education in our SPRE program.

Hi, thank you for having us.

Again, I'm Becky, I'm the education director at the Greenway Foundation.

Um Greenway Foundation has been having several iterations of their education programming since the mid-1980s.

So we've been doing education of some kind of another since then.

I'm gonna talk about what our current programming looks like.

Our current program is called SPRE, South Platte River Environmental Education.

So we change it to SPRE.

And our goal of our all of our education programs and events, activities, is really fostering positive experiences in nature parks along the river for everyone.

Really, we want to not only bring awareness of natural and park spaces along the river and in general throughout Denver to all of the people and children we work with, not only to make them aware of it, not only so that they feel welcome there, but really ultimately that they belong in those spaces.

Not only that, oh yeah, sure, you can come to the parks, but really they belong to you and you belong in them.

So that the parks and those natural spaces are for everyone.

So within our education programs, we have quite a few things going on.

I'll hit on the highlights, and uh one of our big biggest programs is our field trip program.

Um and these run uh all school year long, uh essentially every day, maybe not quite in the coldest part of the year because we are outside with kids all day, each day for those programs.

We primarily work with DPS students, um, we do work with other schools and other districts as well if they reach out and want to do programming with us.

We don't turn anyone away if we can help it, um, really just based on scheduling.

Um, but again, we primarily work with uh DPS and uh the student age group we work with the most is ECE through fifth grade.

And we do some customized programming for middle and upper grades as well on occasion, especially during those off seasons when they can they can handle a little bit of the other weather when they're a little tougher.

Um so uh every grade that we work with we bring to a specific park.

So if we have a third-grade park, we're third grade class signed up, we take them to Confluence Park and we teach them a specific curriculum tied to that place.

So we do place-based education, hands-on programming for every kid.

And so our goal is that the schools that we work with, we see those kids year over year, ECE through fifth grade.

And so they see a new park every year, they see new programming every year, they see a new section of the river every year, and it all builds on itself.

Um, and so through these programs, they're receiving environmental education.

And what that means to us is it's hands-on, place-based, and it hits on many, many pillars and uh topics within their education.

So people often think environmental education is just science.

Um, it's much, much more than that.

Um we have pulled out every state standard that we hit in every program.

Uh we have a whole list.

So if any teacher wants to sign up, they can find that exact thing that they want to learn about, and we'll tell you right and when and where we do it.

Um, and so all of our curriculum is based on the state standards, the next generation science standards, and it covers again, not only science, but it covers social studies, history, some reading and math skills, physical education, language skills.

Um, being that hands-on, it really covers a lot of different areas.

Um we worked with over 3,000 school students this past school year, um, 28 different schools.

Uh about a third of those field trips were conducted in Spanish, which has definitely been an increasing request for our programs over the last few years.

Um, and so we're doing our best to meet all of those requests.

I'm happy to say we we didn't meet all of those requests this past year.

And it's also had us shifting how we're hiring new staff.

We're really seeking out and actively pursuing and hiring more staff members who are bilingual in English and Spanish specifically so that we can continue to meet that growing need.

Again, we want the programs to be for everyone and that everyone can understand and engage with all of the lessons that they do.

And what else?

Our field trips, their curriculum again is uh reviewed annually, so it's based on those standards, but we do update and review it every year to make sure we're using the best practices and the most updated uh references that we need to.

This field trip program has been around since the late 90s, early 2000s in a couple different iterations.

Um we have it has earned many awards since then, and we even earned a new award this year as it got evaluated by an independent group, and through the Colorado Watershed Assembly, we're this year a water education exemplar program.

So that was pretty awesome this year.

Um these programs are we want to reduce as many barriers as possible.

We want every school that wants to come to be able to come.

So 96% of our students that we saw in the last school year received a scholarship funding of one form or another.

Those scholarships are based on the free and reduced lunch rate at their schools, and so we can kind of imagine we do end up working with a lot of uh schools with uh high amounts of those numbers, Title I, etc.

Um, so the cost for us to run these programs.

I want to say this 561 is probably a low estimate of what it costs to run a program per day for us, but the cost of the field trip for these classes, um, the uh it averaged out to 130, so many of them are much lower cost than that.

Um, those costs for us are only increasing as we again hire more bilingual educators and compensate them for that specific skill as well, and just the general cost of materials and minimum wage increases and everything.

So those are costs are increasing, but we're not increasing the cost of our programming for two reasons.

One, it doesn't make sense.

Everyone's gonna apply for and receive a scholarship anyway, and we want the field trips to be accessible for all of those schools.

Uh oh, I guess, yeah, so the they're all subsidized by grants and fundraising that we do so that we can cover the price cost of those field trips.

Make up for that gap.

Um another area of programming is uh through the My Outdoor Colorado grant, um, which is through GOCO Gen Wild Coalition.

Um, these we MOC is what we call it.

These MOC programs have a wide variety of different areas that we cover.

These programs, because they're specifically funded by this grant, are completely free.

Um, and uh those are field trips as we talked about.

So if a school apply uh signs up for a field trip that's in the specific grant area, we just say, yep, you're free, see you there.

Um, and uh it also covers things like after school programs and summer programs that we work with uh schools in these target areas that the MLC grant covers as well.

Um and we primarily work with uh the just DPS Discovery Link program for the out-of-school time uh programs as our partner for that.

Uh last year we in 2020 we did 12 programs.

This year we're already have exceeded that and are going to do even more of them.

We did 17 this year with six more, maybe more on the way, uh scheduled for that.

Another program, they just keep coming.

Um, when we're out of school, we run summer camp programming.

Um, and this is a little bit different than the others, it's more specifically fee-for-service.

Um that said, we do offer many scholarships for this program as well.

Uh so these take place at one of the parks that we work in.

It's week-long day camps that the kids come and sign up for.

It's that hands-on environmental education all day, every day.

And so it's all the kids come home tired, wet, dirty, haven't had a great time.

They've been playing tag, running around, playing games, making crafts all day.

But while you might look on and see them playing tag, they're actually playing tag based on a predator and prey relationship game.

And so they're learning about specific topics and themes as they go through these.

And one of our biggest thing we do every day is we get the kids into the river.

It's their favorite favorite thing.

They get into the Salt Pot River every day, they're catching insects and especially fish and their everyone's favorite, the crawdads, as you can see in the picture.

So again, those programs are also primarily elementary age.

We do have also some middle schoolers who have aged out of our programs and kind of graduated into a leader in training role that we have them on those programs as well.

So this summer we just wrapped up that we had about 159 kids with us on those programs.

We run those, and we also have some partners that come to help us kind of beef up our programming and add a little fun.

So we had DPR and Dottie come in as partners this year, as well as another guest called Nature's Educators who brought some like hawks and snakes and stuff.

Yeah.

Okay.

We also have a really robust high school program.

And so the high school programming falls under four different categories, and I'll go through them each.

One is the River Ranger program.

The River Ranger program has been around since forever.

Yeah, before either of us.

Joel and Clark was one of the river rangers in a different iteration of this program, but it still lives on today.

So the current iteration of this program is we partner with specific schools in the Westwood neighborhood.

And through those schools, those students have an internship program, and we are the host of that internship program for some of them.

So we have about eight students a year who are interested in becoming environmental educators.

So they get out of the classroom, they come outside with us on their days out of school.

We train them in on our field trip programming.

And so what that ends up looking like is kids from these specific neighborhoods end up training, learning these skills and actually performing the education for other younger kids in their own neighborhoods.

And another benefit to this program is many, many of these students also speak Spanish, so they can conduct the whole field trip that they have learned from us in Spanish to really meet the needs of the students that they are directly working with.

From that group of students, we do hired paid positions for them for our summer camp program, as we just talked about as well.

And they get even more training, and they are paid staff at the summer camp, then as well.

Additionally, as part of that program, they also work on an environmental education portfolio, and they become certified environmental educators through CAEE, the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education.

GLC is short for Greenway Leadership Corps.

This is more of like a fun kind of hangout club group, and they might like.

So once a month.

This is not limited to a specific neighborhood, as the group is going.

This year they've done things like archery, cross country skiing, rock climbing.

They went to the stock show last January.

And they also do other things like service projects.

This picture is from a trail building project at a nature conservancy site that they spent a few days camping and working on trail building as well.

And the idea behind this program and the others is that they can not only learn specific skills, but they're also getting career exposure, job readiness skills, all that good stuff.

Those GLC trips, they are all 100% free.

We provide food for them.

We will pick them up.

We will take transport them for free.

We want to make sure that we reduce as many barriers as possible.

Our GLC advisors is a paid role kind of alongside that GLC club.

And those high schoolers are our top recruiters for this program, as well as they help decide what activities that they're gonna do.

And so it's directly from the students what they want to do, and we help them make it happen.

And so we the goal is that they get to experience the outdoors in recreation and other activities that they might not otherwise have access to, and they we can reduce the barriers so they can participate in all of those as much as they'd like.

But fun fact is that our all of those four high school youth programs are run by a former participant in our the River Ranger program.

So one of our previous high school interns is now on staff, and she manages all of those programs, those students and those programs herself.

She's already with us today.

And so we're very proud of her and think it's very cool.

So we love our high schoolers, they love us.

We um we find that they find so much meaning and joy in the positions they work with us on, and as do we.

So we have a fishing, we have a camp out, a cookout, we host stewardship days, through the support of the partners you see here, especially that MLC grant, Parks and Wildlife, and of course, of course, DPR as well.

There's some other big events, and Ryan's gonna take away the next.

A little bit of trivia.

But prior to my starting at Greenway, which is 11 years ago now, it was called Fishing for Kids, and we realized that probably wasn't the best name for it.

So it has now been changed to Family Fishing Day.

Our largest attendant community event is called Cross Currents.

And we've been doing this event under different names for about 12 years now.

Essentially, this is the river festival that hopefully many of you have heard about that takes place in Confluence Park.

The idea here is to engage attendees with the river and get them in the river.

So we provide opportunities to get in a raft, get in a tube, like you see in the photos there, stand-up paddle boards on Cherry Creek.

There's a kid's zone, there's live music all day, there's something for everybody.

We have cultural cultural performances, and there are no tickets.

It's a free of free admission event.

Um you've heard us say it many times, but we do our best to reduce as many barriers as possible to getting people to the river and changing the perceptions that a lot of Denverites have about the river.

Um the TikTok comments and the Instagram comments that we get on this event are wide ranging, um, but that's where we know that we still have work to do.

So very proud of uh how popular this event has become.

Our third pillar is stewardship.

And this is one that we decided.

If we're gonna be the river nonprofit that talks about we we care about the river, we want it to be cleaner, then we've really got to walk our talk.

And that's where we decided we were gonna double down on stewardship.

And we do that in a few different ways.

Uh, we have two signature volunteer events, one in the spring and one in the fall.

They range anywhere from 100 to 300 volunteers.

Uh, generally, one of those takes place in Confluence Park and the other usually somewhere in the river north area, so Carpio Sanguinete or Global Landing has been our spots for the last couple of years.

Um, so we get a lot of work done in partnership with DPR in those two days, but we all know you can pick up all the trash in a park one day and you go back and there's more the next day.

So those are just a part of what we do for stewardship.

Uh private volunteering is something that we've really leaned into in the last year.

Uh we have companies that come out and bring groups of employees as part of team building or just to do some good.

We have some groups like Davida that'll come out on their lunch break and do a trash pickup in Confluence Park for an hour.

Uh, they'll pay their employees uh to do that, so it's a win-win for everyone.

Uh Young Professionals is our newest version of that.

We're doing at least one young professionals cleanup per quarter.

Uh, it's really taken off.

Like we've had as many as 40 people show up to our young professionals cleanup.

It's a great way to meet new people.

We always have new people moving into town.

Um so you're meeting like-minded individuals that want to do good.

Uh, and this one we have a little bit of fun.

There's usually some beer and some pizza afterwards.

So there's a little bit of a carrot for that one.

And then the Greenway Foundation has adopted two parks, Confluence Park and Johnson Habitat Park.

To adopt a park, you have to do at least a minimum of one cleanup per month in those parks.

Uh, so we always meet that, but in all honesty, with the amount of programming that we do in these parks, uh, we're doing several cleanups a month in those.

Uh, the spree team does a cleanup and a trash pickup before every program before the kids arrive.

So anytime we're doing a field trip or summer camp, there's a cleanup before that.

Just to put some numbers to that, uh, we wanted to give a snapshot of a complete year.

So the numbers you see on the screen there are 2024.

Very proud of that.

Um, but we've blown that out of the water in 2025 already.

So just comparing to what you see on the screen there.

Uh already, uh, just here at the end of August, we've removed over 29,000 gallons of trash.

Uh, we have nearly 3,000 volunteer hours, and we're on track to be doing cleanup activities 250 days this year.

Uh so almost double everything that we did in 2024.

So we're extremely proud of that.

This is our last slide, and I really wanted to end this slide with a photo because you've heard about all the stuff that we're doing.

And a lot of times when I tell people about all the things that Greenway does, they think we have a much larger staff than we do.

And you've heard that we have volunteers, we have great partners, but this group that you see in this photo is the ones that make all of this happen.

So, what I'll leave you with is our goal as the Greenway Foundation is to make the river better, to change those negative perceptions that have been around for a long time and just make it a place that people want to be.

And we're really proud of the work that we're doing, but we know that our work's not done.

So thank you for partnering with us on that.

And this committee is a big step forward in making that happen.

So with that, we'll we'll stop and happy to answer any questions.

Awesome.

Ryan Becky, thank you both so much.

Do you want to introduce your team really quickly?

I would love to.

Here on the left is Fiona, she's our newest staff member.

Destiny in the middle is the one we were referring to that went through our river ranger program and now leads our high school program.

And then Rachel Gillette on the end has been with Greenway Foundation.

I believe is our longest staff member, is our grants and partnerships director, and was a former educator as well.

Excellent.

All responsible for educating.

Thanks for coming to the committee as well.

Before we get to questions, I want to welcome some committee members.

Councilwoman Parity, Councilman Flynn is joining us online, and Council President Sandoval.

So thanks everyone for being here.

We'll start with Councilwoman Albidanis.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you all for being here.

It's really exciting to hear that you're even doing more work this year.

That's amazing.

And I just got a notification on my phone about the air quality at Johnston Habitat Park.

So I always monitor it there because it's closest to my house and it's an amazing park.

And I know Jolan says that's his baby and has a great relationship with you all, who's my predecessor for those of you now know that.

But I really appreciate this work.

I think it's great.

I would love to see a list of the schools just because, like, for example, by that park, the closest elementary school, I'm curious if they're a part of it.

Absolutely.

Um, and how we can continue to support that work.

And then, you know, and this is something I learned recently actually from council president was just talking about the temperature of the water and how we repair the health.

And so I'm curious, um, how how as we repair it together with your support, especially as community advocates.

One concern I have, as we have been talking a lot about data centers, AI, nuclear-like, are you all having those conversations and teaching those young people about the future technologies and how those can affect our water?

I won't you take that one?

Um, yes and no.

The primary age is the elementary students.

Um, and so in following the state standards and the curriculum that and just focused on that place-based education, we're really like looking at a plant and IDing it, we're pulling a crowd out of the river and talking about how that might indicate water quality.

Um, so we do teach about water quality and the temperatures are part of that.

As far as the AI and the new technologies and stuff for that age group, no, not yet.

Um, I won't say we wouldn't.

I think we haven't yet.

Um, probably using it around.

Yeah, right.

Probably better at it than we are.

Right.

Um, for the upper grades, it's definitely like something we would do a program on for our high schoolers.

We do work with um a couple schools in Globille and Leary Swansea that um come out and talk specifically about uh water quality and impacts and technology and industry.

Um, so that's in some of those more custom programmings, is where I've implemented that before.

Great, awesome.

And I'll add, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but um, I have a lot of education, educating myself to do on that.

But um we're definitely a proponent for technology that improves like water reuse for those data centers.

Um, I know it's important to them to cut down on their water use, and and so there's a there's a win-win for us to understand how we can do that better, and we're proponent.

Um, and then something I learned from you recently was that recreation actually helps because um I think we were talking about events near the river.

I was like, is that actually good for the river?

And you're like, yes, recreation is actually good.

So I think that's a good thing for people out in the um world to know.

Um, but thank you for all you do, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Okay, committee.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Parity.

Oh, yeah, I didn't think I would be next.

Um, I this is so interesting.

And what I'm looking at is actually your website, just so you know.

Cool.

Because I'm like, oh, um learning more about it.

I definitely also sent an email to my kids' school saying check out these filters.

That's also anyway.

Maybe they already do them, but I don't think they do.

Um, so I think I don't even really know where to start.

I'm sorry because I'm caught off guard because I have so many questions and was like reading and thinking about 12 things at once.

But um I would love to know, like from your point of view.

Obviously, the Army Corps of Engineers funding seems to be safe from everything that's going on.

Um, I'm wondering if you guys are seeing funding impacts either directly to your work or just to the you know in your circles, kind of like to the things you care about.

It's really hard for um those of us that are left officials to keep track of that.

You would not think so.

Sure.

But it is uh just as chaotic for us as it is for everyone else.

So we like to at least I like to ask about that when I can only imagine.

Um we didn't have any direct impacts as we don't receive any federal funding to the Greenway Foundation directly.

Um we did have a couple of EPA grants that we felt very strongly about that would have been very helpful that did not come through.

So there's potential impacts there for sure.

Um but we we have seen just with the uncertainty in the political climate fundraising does seem to be extra difficult this year.

Um I can't pinpoint exactly what that is, but uh as we alluded to in the uh funding for education programs, that gap keeps getting bigger, right?

What the student the students that we work with and schools that we work with can afford and what it costs to put on these programs that delta keeps getting bigger.

So um that is definitely a constant challenge for any nonprofit, especially environmental diverse nonprofit.

Yeah, I was curious.

I'm actually almost surprised that you guys didn't have APA funding, so at least that's not a loss opportunity.

Right, yeah, that's one way to look at it.

So and then the other thing I would want to know is just the like with your kind of again on the ground knowledge about the cleanup along the river.

We've had all kinds of entities that touch on the river come in here.

It's been really interesting.

Um, and I would love to know kind of anecdotally what you would name as like big remaining cleanup needs because we hear that from a very technocratic point of view, but I'm just super curious for places or um, it varies.

Uh you know, Confluence Park probably gets the most attention.

Like we have a lot of there's it's dense down there, so like when we have companies and things that want to do a cleanup near the office, usually ends up being uh near Confluence Park.

So that gets a lot of attention, but there's always gonna be trash to pick up there.

Um some of the like parks that get less attention, you know, moving moving north where it's more industrial, um, though those parks could use more attention.

And so anytime we have an opportunity where they say we'll go anywhere, we try to direct them to some of those parks.

Globeville Landing Park is it's a great place because there's parking, um, so we can get people down there.

Um, but there's always trash to pick up.

So there's there's things like that that make some parks and spaces better than others.

Cool.

That's interesting.

Um then what um are there any projects in the bond that you all particularly have your eyes on and are like excited about or advocating for?

Not particularly that necessarily pertain directly to the river.

I know there are trail projects um and that would some widening of trails.

I just don't know exactly where that fits into the bond, so forgive me on that.

Um, we're hoping there would be some for for waterway resiliency, but uh unfortunately I didn't make it.

Okay.

I think those are I could have so many things, but I'm good for now.

Thank you.

That's all right, you can get back in.

Councilman Watson.

Uh thank you so much, uh, Councilmember Torres.

Thank you so much uh for greenery foundation.

I um I reflect back uh because I'm one of the old ones.

Uh moved there in 1987 and um I remember going down to the river when I moved here, and I was just still alone away that we actually have a river in the city.

That's right.

Um didn't quite look like it looks now back in 1987.

But the good work that you all have done over all that time has provided for some of the spaces.

I mean, REI wasn't built up then as yet, and so we were dealing with some stuff that was um really tough.

And so I wanted to say, you know, thank you for the long view, because many of us who love the river and uh have been around it for a second, um, really appreciates and uh my first question is what are some of the ways from the work that you're doing, and maybe some of the widening gaps that you're seeing in um funding, etc.

What are the things that we as council can do to provide support to Greenway Foundation, whether it's elevating programs, projects, um attending like I I had no idea you did the all cleanup and we'll love more information.

But if if y'all mind sharing water ways, we can be of support, that would be uh fantastic.

Thank you for the kind words.

I I appreciate it.

Funding is always gonna be an issue for for any nonprofit, and and we know that's uh a challenge in all aspects right now.

So anyways, you know, if there are connections to grant programs you think would be helpful that you're you think, oh, Greenway Foundation would be a good fit for that.

We have a fantastic fantastic grant writer.

Um so any connections to ideas will hunt those down uh would be great.

The work that you're doing here is tremendous for our work.

Just getting people to know about the river, and and they can't care about it if they don't know about it, right?

And they're not gonna care about it if they haven't experienced it, which is why we have uh events like cross currents and get people down there to see it.

So um continuing to keep keep it a priority, keep it in the news and keep it in the top, you know, people talking about it.

That is that's huge for us.

You know, that's probably the biggest thing you can do.

We're a small but mighty group, so our marketing you know, dollars and efforts are are small, so anything you can help us do to amplify our message, uh, amplify messages about the water and about the river would be tremendous.

Well, thanks for sending us information on your fall.

Um for our newsletters.

I know each of the offices we send stuff out, and then I'm curious from y'all's perspective, the uh the good work, the water resiliency process with Army Corps of Engineer.

What are one of our two?

Tell me what would be your priority thing that you really would love for this committee to um really lean into as we continue the ongoing discussions we're having with the Army Corps uh, it's a great question.

And thank you for that.

Um the the program really has two pieces, right?

There's there's weird gulch, which is reducing flood risk, and so from a safety standpoint, that is paramount.

And the good news is that that project is is gonna start.

Um, so continuing to push so that that project reaches completion, because and I don't understand all the funding, I won't claim to, um, but I know reach one, at least as I understand it is funded.

I don't know about the other reaches.

Um, but you're talking about a life and death situation there.

Um, so that is it has to be paramount.

And then the South Platte River portion is a second portion.

Um I would say it's less important because it doesn't necessarily involve life and death.

But if we truly want to say that we want to have a healthy river and we want to restore the river to you know what it was for the people that were before us and for generations to come, then projects like the waterway resiliency program, restoring habitat, uh restoring a natural flow, um are gonna be really important to doing that.

So the whole thing is really important.

Do you expect me to say anything less?

Um, but but you know, the the weird gulch portion is is truly a life and death.

And we saw that with with what happened in Texas, you know, and we we don't want to look back and say, you know, could we have done something different?

Could we have done something sooner?

Uh we don't want to be in that position.

And uh want to share uh some words from Grand Happy Shoemaker as we uh my husband's from Muskegon and that's where he lives now.

So we go back we go and we see him, and so uh he sends his love and thoughts uh to you all.

I didn't know you're gonna be here, but we uh we went back um a few months back and uh saw him again.

So very cool.

He's very proud of the work that all of you all are doing here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Brian, thanks for mentioning the waterway resiliency program.

So we make it a point to bring them quarterly to this committee because of the importance of that work.

Um, they'll be here just for everyone's awareness next on October 8th.

Okay.

Um with uh with their their fall update.

Councilman Heights.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you so much uh for being here and for all your work that you do.

Um it's uh growing up in rural East Texas where there are plentiful streams and rivers everywhere, um and one natural naturally occurring lake in the entire state of Texas, kind of interesting, was uh Beaver Dam.

So I guess that's naturally occurring, but the beavers it's natural.

It's also interesting in such a great uh large state.

Um, there's only one natural occurring.

But um the I know that some of my constituents are very informed and engaged and they be action this right now.

So I could not um let this go and not say thank you for your work with the Delgany Bridge.

Um I know that that is something that is uh a particular pain point to folks who live in uh in lower downtown in the immediate area around the Delgany Bridge, and so um that is uh that continues to be a um a hot topic.

Um the number one priority for at least 100, if not 200 residents that live uh in that area of Denver.

So um I do I just want to thank you for I know that you used the other bridge as storage um for uh for some time, but you was in the the Greenway Foundation, not as in you specifically personally.

Um but uh uh so you are part of the conversation um just uh whether you like it or not, but um but I do want to thank you for being part of the conversation because uh that is that is of top importance for uh for quite a few folks.

Absolutely, and and Ditto, thank you for your leadership on that.

Uh we've got some really engaged uh neighbors there that are leading that charge, and you know we're happy to support any way we can, and it does feel like there's some movement on that.

So thank you as well.

Yeah, and um, and in case someone is watching and hasn't uh uh hasn't already been aware.

Uh please reach out to my office.

We do have uh some immediate neighbors that are actively um working the um the process to get a resolution for an open and um accessible to use your word uh Delgeny Bridge.

Yep, and uh there is a fundraising uh link.

There's a separate site specifically for the bridge, as well as uh a link on our site because we know there's gonna be funds needed for the repairs.

So um that fundraising fundraising is live as well.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Um I'm I'm just so glad we were finally able to hear from you because your mission and your focus.

I was reading your um annual report earlier, and when it was first created in 74, um, the mission was to revitalize, restore, and reclaim the South Platte River, and um 50 years in, that's still the goal of not just Greenway Foundation, but I think why we created this committee.

Um as we're seeing I think now so much more development happening along the river.

Um, I think we ask uh both how is that development treating the river, kind of what is that interaction looking like, what does it produce in terms of a relationship to the river?

Um, and how does it start to turn around those spaces into public spaces again?

And so I think um I what I infer from your your comment earlier about uh social media comments or TikTok comments, um, are basically like uh what I would assume is don't go in the river, right?

Um, think I I grew up with that um as the reputation of the river, it's not somebody somewhere you play um and and hang out.

So that you have this relationship with Denver Public Schools and kids, and get them used to one the expectation that we should have a clean river, um, and two, here's what you need to know about it and how you get excited about it.

I really think you're creating um the advocates um for our future, and so really appreciate that and and honestly wonder, especially for the high school students that you're working with, um, how or if there's a conversation to have with Prosperity Denver who do kind of the scholarships for um DPS students, and getting them into um ecology and environmental type uh studies, um, like exposing that interest early so that they can uh pursue something like that in the future.

I think that's a great idea.

We'll we'll check that out and thank you for that.

We're our river rangers did their presentation, I believe it was two weeks ago now.

They're kind of this is what I did this summer uh presentation, and it was really really cool to hear, and we hear year after year.

You know, I did this because my brother did it, or I did it because my friends are doing it.

I had really no interest, and then they leave with a true interest in pursuing a career in that field or at least a bond with with a place that they didn't have before.

Yeah, I know growing up there were things that you experienced where you're like, Oh, I didn't know that's a job.

Right, exactly.

Which someone would have told me, right?

Very good.

All right, thank you so much, and no other um questions.

I just want to thank you for being here.

Thank you for your partnership and continued interest, and I'm sure we'll keep seeing you around.

Thanks so much for having us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

We're adjourned.

We have one item on consent.

I actually have all the feeling.