Endurance runner Dylan Bowman joined a growing list of celebrities rallying behind the Every Kid in a Park program when he led fourth graders in a day of outdoor games and exploring in San Francisco recently. Jack Johnson and his wife, Kim, announced a commitment via their Kokua Hawai’i Foundation to fund field trips for the 17,000 fourth graders in Hawai’i last year, while Modern Family star (and Sierra Club Ambassador) Nolan Gould joined Michelle Obama in an Every Kid in a Park Virtual Reality Experience to talk about the importance of this program.
The Every Kid in a Park program provides fourth graders and their families access to federally managed lands and waters free of cost for an entire year, ensuring that kids across the country can experience our nation’s public lands, waters, and shores. It’s no surprise that the program, which is creating opportunities to connect hundreds of thousands of kids with the outdoors, has received broad support and praise.
Kids are most open to learning about the world around them between the ages of 9 and 11, yet many barriers prevent kids from getting outdoors. Spending time exploring and con-necting with the natural world is often replaced by sitting in front of a screen, and a majority of families
in the United States live in cities without safe access to the outdoors. This pro-gram is designed to address this chal-lenge, giving fourth graders an opportu-nity to experience the living classroom of America’s national parks and historic sites.
The Outdoors Alliance for Kids (OAK) con-tinues to build our work across multiple sectors to create equitable opportu-nities for kids to connect with the outdoors. As part of this effort, OAK has been partnering with federal agencies and organiza-tional partners to support the Every Kid in a Park program.
To ensure that fourth graders across America know about this incredible opportunity, OAK has joined forces with the National Park Trust, The North Face and, the National Park Service to host five Every Kid in a Park events in major cities across the country. The event series, supported by a generous contribution from The North Face’s Explore Fund, are being held in New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago.
North Face global athlete Dylan Bowman teaches about packing a backpack at an Every Kid in a Park event. Photo credit: National Park Trust
Dylan Bowman, famous endurance runner and member of The North Face’s Global Athlete team, joined an Every Kid in a Park event recently at the Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco. The event engaged 60 fourth graders from Hoover Elementary School in an active day of outdoor games and exploring. Bowman helped lead activities, which included learning how to pack a backpack for a day hike as part of a “backpack relay race” and setting up a tent. The energetic students left the event with their own official Every Kid in a Park pass.
Students at Every Kid in a Park event in San Francisco
Photo credit: National Park Trust
Support for Every Kid in a Park continues to grow. The program is now secured for the next five years, giving new generations of fourth graders access to more than 2,000 sites. The program is sustained by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Forest Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Although it is primarily implemented through these seven agencies, the program has received support from many community organizations and foundations.
To ensure the continued support of this program through OAK partners and initiatives, OAK has partnered with the National Park Service to bring on a fellow through Conservation Legacy to help directly with Every Kid in a Park. The new Community Assistance Fellow, Isabel Argoti, began in January and will work with the National Park Service and OAK through December 2017.
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Every Kid in a Park passes
Photo credit: Annie Yearout, Author of OutdoorsyMama.com
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GETTING EVERY KID IN A PARK
Brenna Muller, Outdoors Alliance for Kids