Dear Neighbors,

I’ve been a part of Wild Bear since the mid-2000s, when I was about five years old. Some of my earliest memories include arriving for our day camp in Chautauqua, an animal or dinosaur book in hand for our breaks.

Wild Bear has grown a lot in the twenty years I’ve been part of it. From hosting after-school workshops in a laboratory room at Nederland Elementary, it opened its own interim building in 2010, expanding its goals to educate and inspire new generations through our natural world. I have too many memories at the center to count.

To start each day, the instructors and kids often sang “Wild Bear Nature” by local Emmy-winning songwriter David Williams. That song is still a core part of the center.

I waded knee-deep to catch crayfish and damselfly larvae in Mud Lake, which Wild Bear worked with the Town of Nederland and Boulder County to restore from a dumping ground to a healthy wetland habitat.

I loved sharing everything I learned about the animals I loved in and out of the center. The living “animal ambassadors” in the center fascinated countless kids, including myself.

Then, in October, the nature center burned down with a dozen other businesses in the Caribou Village Shopping Center. However, the significant loss brought by the Lakeview Fire still lingers for the entire Nederland community.

For the last few years, Wild Bear has been working on a permanent net-zero facility integrated into their portion of land near Mud Lake. Right now, Wild Bear’s priority is bringing the new nature center to the finish line, recruiting major donors, and keeping their momentum going.

The sparks of the Lakeview Fire have set progress back for everyone affected. However, we’re continuously motivated with a different kind of spark – the spark of an idea that starts a movement. Jill is a shining example of this, having recently received the Norris Hermsmeyer Spark Plug Award from the Rotary Club of Boulder Flatirons for the movement she started 31 years ago.

25 kids attended the first Wild Bear camps in 1995. Decades later, I’m one of the thousands of people who can testify how much Wild Bear has significantly impacted my love of nature and my life as a whole.

When Jill started the nature center, the explosion of the World Wide Web had barely begun. Now, much of the world utilizes technology on a daily basis and takes it everywhere. Studies continuously show that in recent years, kids spend fewer than ten minutes outside free- playing. We need to find ways to connect with and embrace nature whenever possible.

The staff, supporters, and families who have been part of Wild Bear over all this time are some of my biggest inspirations. As the saying goes, “Once a Wild Bear, always a Wild Bear.”

Their spark is still as strong as ever, and they need your help to fuel their mission. Now more than ever, we need nature and nature needs us.

Learn more about the mission now at wildbear.org and at go.wildbear.org.

Jamie Lammers

Coal Creek Canyon