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Dear Friends,
For nearly a decade it has been both a privilege and an honor to serve as Executive Director of High Plains Environmental Center. HPEC is a unique voice in the world of environmental stewardship. Transcending the outworn patterns of business vs. environment, HPEC provides a replicable model of collaborative relationships between developers, builders, businesses, residents, and their environment all working together to create communities where people and nature can coexist and thrive. We offer a hopeful vision for conservation in the 21st century communities that we design and build which includes landscaping with water-saving native plants that provide critical forage for wildlife, and vegetating open space and storm water ponds with native grasses. Perhaps most importantly, we are helping to shift the paradigm about open space in urban communities away from being "mowed to death" and toward understanding and accepting natural areas with tall native grasses replicating our prairie ecosystem as it was meant to be. HPEC is in an exciting period in our development with a pre-k through 8, public school, being built adjacent to our center, with a planned opening in 2016. This school and our growing focus on educational outreach presents the urgent need for us to build an educational visitor center. Inspiring the land stewards of the next generation is a key value of HPEC, building our educational center will be our central focus over the next several months.
Click HERE to view our ColoradoGives.com page, watch a 3 minute video and let HPEC staff tell you about our a hopeful vision for conservation in the 21st Century, and please support our passion for "restoring nature where we live, work, and play" on Colorado Gives Day.
Jim Tolstrup
Executive Director
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