Beaver Meadow Nature Center & Buffalo Audubon Society

Do you remember the feeling of playing outdoors as a child? Climbing trees, playing tag, jumping in leaves, and pretending with friends, with the sun on your face, the wind in your hair, and not a care in the world. What great memories!

Back then, you were just having fun. Today we call it free play, and it's crucial to child development. Free play offers many benefits - it develops gross motor skills; increases cognitive, social, and problem-solving skills; promotes creativity; and improves confidence when children take healthy risks.

Unfortunately, childhood free play is diminishing due to safety concerns, rigid schedules, and increased screen time, leading to solitary play and sedentary lifestyles.

At Buffalo Audubon Society and Beaver Meadow Nature Center, we believe more free play opportunities are needed for children. We offer many, including Nature Play and Fairy House Lane. Both provide unstructured and imaginative play using natural elements like twigs and logs, stumps, small rocks and large boulders, plants, and more. These play areas are well-loved by students, children, and families but they are in need of repairs and updates.

Today we ask for your financial support of Nature Play and Fairy House Lane to add new interactive components including tree slices, wood benches, a live willow hut, boulders, planters, plants, grapevine arches, a log tunnel and balance beam, and fairy houses. You will help bring these special creative play areas back to life for our youngest visitors, so they will enjoy their free play just like you did!

More About Buffalo Audubon Society & Beaver Meadow Nature Center: We want you to appreciate and enjoy all that our natural world has to offer! We invite people of all ages to participate in immersive nature activities and environmental education programs. And, as a national Audubon Society affiliate, we also offer fun and engaging birding hikes. Our conservation efforts include protecting over 1,000 acres of habitat on seven preserves; constructing Tern Island, a 14,000 square foot island in the City of Buffalo’s Niagara River Corridor for Common Tern habitat; and engaging the public in community science projects. Last year, we proudly had over 17,000 contacts with our community at Beaver Meadow Nature Center and through education programs.

Our mission: We lead and inspire Western New Yorkers to connect with and protect the natural world through bird-focused activities, advocacy, and habitat restoration.