Hidden Gems: Meet Rachel Hutchens of Bluff Lake Nature Center

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Hutchens

Hi Rachel, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As the Executive Director of a nonprofit, my role is to lift up the amazing mission driven work accomplished by my team, as well as to secure resources that they need in order to thrive. These resources obviously include things like funding (primarily through grants and donations), but also things like strong Human Resources systems, good benefits, and positive work culture. What I am most proud of is the growth that our team has seen over the last six years. We have gone from a budget of around $300,000 to over $1M. Our year round team has grown from four people to eleven people. Our site’s annual visitation has increased from ~40,000 pre pandemic to over 100,000 in 2024. Nearly 13,000 of those individuals were engaged in one of our programs led by our Education Team ranging from weekly summer camps, to family days, to volunteer-led bird walks, to our onsite forest preschool and our homeschool options program. Its incredible that we are able to bring nature so many individuals in the metro area, all while managing and protecting a very important 123-acre habitat in an urban area. Our Natural Resource Team works hard to both continually learn more about the site through wildlife studies and water quality sampling, as well as manage the impacts of our many visitors through trail restoration, clean-ups, and more.

I became the Executive Director after starting out as our Education Director. I got to facilitate our programs first hand, and see the magic of a child overcoming their fear and holding a crawdad for the first time. This onsite experience really helped me in my role as Executive Director, because I can speak to the challenges our team faces, as well as the impact our programs have, first hand.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Nonprofit work has a wide variety of challenges but also so many opportunities. Every year we have to really grind to ensure we bring in enough funding to run our programs and sustain our staff. Community support means so much and literally keeps our programs running. But because we are a nonprofit, we also are flexible and can adapt to certain challenges perhaps easier than other industries.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Bluff Lake Nature Center?
Bluff Lake Nature Center 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. Our mission is to educate individuals to be engaged, resilient, and curious; conserve a natural area in the city; further equity in outdoor access; and nurture the health and well-being of communities and ecosystems. Bluff Lake’s 123-acre site is home to a diverse array of habitats, including prairie, wetland, and riparian, and a thriving community of plants and animals including over 230 species of birds. Bluff Lake is free and open to the public 365 days a year from sunrise to sunset.

Bluff Lake was established after the Stapleton Airport closed in 1994, under a settlement between the City and County of Denver (CCD) and the Sierra Club citing excessive pollution. Though once owned by the CCD, the 123-acre site is now owned, operated, programed, and managed by our nonprofit organization, Bluff Lake Nature Center, after a transfer of ownership in 2008.

Today, Bluff Lake is a vibrant outdoor classroom and wildlife refuge in the heart of a rapidly developing Northeast Denver, serving thousands of families in Montbello, Northwest Aurora, Park Hill, Commerce City and Central Park (see Project Location in attachments). Bluff Lake has experienced major growth over the past five years with site visitation up 46.7% since 2019. Over 100,000 people enjoy the site each year, including 12,000+ youth and families who are engaged through our education programs, which include free family programs, summer camps, and field trips (serving 93% Title I students for free). A majority of our students come from Denver Public Schools, Aurora Public Schools, and Adams 14, which averaged together is 65.5% Hispanic, 15.5% white, 11% Black, and 8% other. The site serves many Black and Hispanic communities, as well as many low-income families, who lack the resources and time for exploring natural areas, which is why we focus heavily on free and accessible programming.

The surrounding neighborhoods of Northeast Denver, Northwest Aurora, Commerce City, and many more within a few minutes of Bluff Lake, have grown significantly in the last 10 years. The aforementioned growth in our visitation and programming has resulted in Bluff Lake needing to seriously consider how we can better serve our community. In order to sustain our organization, site and programs’ immense growth as well as protect the diverse and valuable habitats on our 123-acre wildlife refuge, we need to add major infrastructure improvements to the site. Our plans consist of an $8.5M investment that includes the construction of a community building with indoor and outdoor classrooms, a lobby, bathrooms, offices, other administrative spaces, as well as a redesigned parking lot and improved access down into the site through a new ADA compliant ramp trail. This project breaks ground in March 2025. For updates, check out our website!

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Access to the outdoors is important now more than ever. Spaces like Bluff Lake are vital for our community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.blufflake.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blufflakenaturecenter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BluffLakeNatureCenter/

Image Credits
Jason Bidgood, Diverge Productions, Lauren Keller