Annual Report 2020 Photos by Ruth Forsgren Photo by Ruth Forsgren ANNUAL REPORT 2020 Annual Report Photo by Ruth Forsgren Table Of Contents • Director’s Report 03 • Citizen Science Center Update 05 • Meet the Team 06 • Board Members 13 • Volunteers 14 • COVID-19 Response 15 • Grants Received 2020 16 • 2021 Operating Budget 17 PAGE: 02 ANNUAL REPORT 2020 DIRECTOR’S REPORT 2020 he year 2020 has been very difficult over 146 families! All of this happening and cameras from our grants to Tfor everyone, but I want to thank the right in the middle of quarantine and support these videos. members, boards, volunteers, and staff we even got great reviews from our On top of that, Beaver Creek for helping get Beaver Creek through participants. staff was also asked to come up with such a tough and uncertain time. I Despite a very competitive year, various projects that they could work on would especially like to thank the staff, in some cases grantors receiving during the safer at home order and as as it was their creativity and passion for eight times as many applications as other programs got cancelled. We Beaver Creek and knowing what we usual, Beaver Creek still received grants collected and ranked all the tasks and mean to the community that really from Xcel, Nordson Foundation, and had over 100 to complete. We didn’t get made this year a success by any the Eau Claire Community Foundation. to them all, but it gave myself and the description. I also usually get to thank all These funds are going to help build a staff a clear direction on what was the staff’s significant others and social new butterfly house in 2021 and helped the most important to complete and companions that have to deal with the release of our new Junior Naturalist many of the things that were me through them in person, so please program, which we’re expanding this accomplished we wouldn’t have had accept this virtual thank you for winter. The Junior Naturalist program time for in a business as usual year. putting up with me this year. Work can has fun activities that families can One of the biggest tasks that we be stressful in a normal year, even at a participate in like Monarch raising kits, completed was switching to a nature center, and throwing into the mix of which we sold over 80 kits this comprehensive software program that an international pandemic and being summer so families could raise will reduce three databases down to one. forced to work from home for most of butterflies in their homes and release It will include: volunteer, membership, the staff, things can get pretty crazy... so them at home! donor, registrations, calendar, point I also need to extend an extra special Due to scial distancing of sale and marketing information. • Director’s Report thank you to my better half, Katie! I restrictions, we weren’t able to hold couldn’t have done it without your our summer camps as usual, and • Citizen Science Center Update support! unfortunately, our virtual summer We have had so many camps didn’t take off the way we had (Continued onto next page) • Meet the Team modern-day heroes during this pan- hoped, but we’ve been working with demic that have allowed us to stay local schools to produce virtual field • Board Members open and successful. Dan and Karen trips with great results. Mittag single-handedly watered all the In fact, we’ve received • Volunteers native plants during the safer at home many accolades from order and transplanted half of them. parents and other • COVID-19 Response All of the Native Plant Sale volunteers community members need to be thanked, as this was our sole on how great all • Grants Received 2020 monetary success in 2020 with having of our virtual lessons all of our plants sold! The committee have been. The Natu- • 2021 Operating Budget has already agreed to work harder ralists have produced this winter into spring to grow more over two hours of plants as this is so impactful to our YouTube videos this mission and financial success. Look summer and the number for more details in our expanded is growing each week Earth Week Challenge in 2021. We are as they create more going to be partnering with the city virtual field trips. We’re of Eau Claire to expand our outreach. also able to get new This spring we went from 40 teams to computers, software, PAGE: 03 ANNUAL REPORT 2020 DIRECTOR’S REPORT (cont.) The other big task from the list is hundreds of hours in maintenance projects that get pushed back when guests are at Beaver Creek and other new things that come up. We have cleared around cabins, cleaned off roofs, sealed up doors, cleaned out storage areas, built new walkways, stairs, and bridges, and made all of our sleeper cabins available for overnight rentals. Taking care of projects is an endless job at Beaver Creek, but Jerad, Jerry, and Kris have been able to get a mountain of work done so far. Much of this work was needed as we received a PPP loan from the Federal CARES Act. We were able to switch the loan to a grant if we kept our staff 100% employed for eight continuous weeks. This grant was for $96,700 and was a huge reason we were able to stay open with the loss of over $160,000 in revenue. This is why we’re setting a goal to raise $200,000 for this year’s campaign. This year, we are anticipating a loss of $50,000, but through our successes and tightening our belts, we have gotten that down from $80,000. We also want to raise our $50,000 goal for the endowment so that can continue to grow, and then raise another $100,000 to help offset the losses that we are projecting next year before we can get schools and camps back out and in their regular visits. Please consider giving to our campaign. We’ve already raised $40,000 and if each member gives just $10 a month we would easily achieve our goal. Beaver Creek is important to the health of the people walking its trails and the health of the community we live in. We are still “connecting people to nature” daily and I hope you will invest in Beaver Creek this year in your giving plans. Thank you, Erik Keisler, Executive Director Photos by Kris Bohlinger PAGE: 04 ANNUAL REPORT 2020 CITIZEN SCIENCE CENTER UPDATE e are very proud to say that the and this winter we will spend our 23rd he Aquatic Invasive Species pro- WCitizen Science Center has been winter banding birds at the Wise Nature Tgram has spent a lot of time this year able to persevere through this year and Center. We will continue developing focusing on partnerships. We’re excited maintain a majority of our programs online bird related programs for the to be transitioning from a DNR pilot and even acquire some new volunteers. public along with developing online program into a more direct partnership It has certainly been a challenge to training material for new volunteers. with the counties we work in. This figure out how to conduct our work that transition will allow us to continue is often very hands-on and includes to provide many of the services and being in close proximity to people. There programs that we’ve been working on were a few times we just wanted to pull the last few years, and only improve the curtains shut and say forget it. We upon the connections we have with are so grateful to our staff, our Avian those communities. With the help of Monitoring Intern, our Aquatic Invasive our AIS intern, Emma, we were able to Species Intern, and to our fabulous survey trout stream locations through- volunteers. Through lots of brain- out Buffalo and Dunn county for storming and Zoom meetings we were invasives. Although some of our able to work together and determine programs were not able to run in the safe ways to continue our projects. same capacity we still had volunteers and partners excited to accomplish what we could through the Clean Boats Clean Waters, Citizen Lake Monitoring Network. We’ll also be developing online Invasive Species and Lake Ecology programs and are excited to see what the new year will bring with these strengthened partnerships. nother project we have been busy Awith this year is working on a management plan for the Henke The Avian Monitoring Program property, which is where we collect has gone off without a hitch. We data for MAPS as well as catch various continued our MAPS project, Monitoring butterfly species for our Butterfly Avian Productivity and Survivorship, House. Since the land was donated completing our seventeenth year. It to us in 2018, we have been working was a huge accomplishment to pull it off on a plan that will allow us to manage under the current conditions. Plus, the land for both the wooded and there were some excellent visitors prairie areas. The plan also automat- this year, two Pileated Woodpeckers ically certifies us as eligible for cost- in one net, a Broad-winged Hawk, and sharing programs through the FSA a Cooper’s Hawk. None of those and NRCS. One of our Naturalists, species are our target species, Jim Schwiebert, has been actively but still bring a lot of excitement. treating the prairie areas to control Running our MAPS program has spotted knapweed (an aggressive provided us with the foundation and invasive plant).