Welcome to Maddie and Nicole!

Maddie is Growing Up Boulder's first-ever Development and Operations Coordinator, and her role is to support GUB's workflow in the areas of development, office operations, and communications.

Maddie is an educator with a diverse background, ranging from outdoor education to traditional science teaching. Maddie is a passionate advocate for equitable opportunities for youth. She received her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from University of Redlands and a Master of Arts in Teaching with a specialization in culturally responsive science classrooms from Relay Graduate School of Education. Beginning her career as an outdoor educator, Maddie discovered the profound impact of experiential learning in the great outdoors. This experience laid the foundation for a transition into the traditional classroom setting, where she continued to ignite curiosity and innovation for students. She firmly believes that every young mind holds incredible potential, and she is dedicated to ensuring that quality education and the wonders of the natural world are accessible to all. In Maddie's free time, she finds joy making pottery, traveling, and backpacking.

As a Growing Up Boulder Educational Consultant, Nicole engages in community participatory research and listening events, collaborates with city partners, analyzes data and writes reports. In her 30 years in education, she has taught everything from preschool to university students both in the U.S. and abroad. She believes childhood is sacred and that everyone can do their part to uphold the human rights of all children. Nicole works with local Early Childhood Councils and Spanish-speaking providers to establish in-home childcare businesses in addition to teaching Early Childhood Education courses at CU Denver on multicultural family partnerships, bilingualism, and dual language learners. Her service includes board membership of CIRCLE, a youth leadership and social justice nonprofit and she is board president of the Boulder Library Foundation. Nicole holds a B.S. in Latin American Studies/Bilingual Education from UC Santa Cruz, an MA in Teaching Spanish and ESL from SIT, and a PhD from CU Boulder in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity. She enjoys time with her family, gardening, being in nature, yoga, swimming, traveling and learning languages.

Pilot GUB's Child Friendly City Map Making Course for FREE!

Since Growing Up Boulder launched its Child Friendly City Map in 2019, communities and individuals around the world have asked, "How might we create a child-friendly map for our community?"  We now have an answer!  Under the leadership of GUB Education Director, Cathy Hill, GUB created an online course to walk teams through the map-making process.  While there will eventually be a cost for the course, right now, we are looking for one or two pilot communities to test out the course for FREE!  Please contact "cathy @ growingupboulder.org" if you are interested.

Congratulations to GUB Board Member, Professor Warren Binford

On September 21, the CU School of Medicine honored Professor Warren M. Binford as the inaugural W.H. Lea Endowed Chair for Justice in Pediatric Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Colorado.  While Binford was appointed as Director of Pediatric Law, Policy, and Ethics at the Kempe Center and Core Faculty at the University of Colorado Center for Bioethics and Humanities in 2020, the celebration of Binford’s position and of Testimony, a series arts and advocacy events she inspired, were delayed until 2023 due to the pandemic.  For more details about Testimony, which is ongoing through the end of 2023, read here.  

8 Years Later, Children's Input Influences Boulder's Walkable Neighborhoods

While 8 years feels like a lifetime to a child (the children in the photo above are now young adults), it can be a blip in the lifetime of a municipal project.  Thus, when we learned in 2023 that the City was working on "walkable" neighborhoods, the GUB team dusted off its 2015 "15-minute neighborhood" report to ensure that the children's wisdom would not be forgotten.  Thankfully, city partners assured GUB that the children's ideas would be incorporated into their planning.  This project illustrates the importance of GUB's documentation and demonstrates that children's ideas can impact the community in many ways for many years!

Growing Up Boulder's vision is to to cultivate vibrant communities where all young people thrive.  Growing Up Boulder's mission is centering young people's rights, voices, and agency to advance equitable and sustainable communities for all.