Nine months after President Obama heralded his Every Kid In A Park program, the initiative is showing some growing pains, but National Park Service officials are optimistic about the long-term benefits of the program.
In recent weeks Traveler has been told the program that the president announced in late February was little known in school districts in northern Virgina and in one of the largest in Texas. National Park Service officials agree that they've had challenges to launch the program in the handful of months between the president's announcement and September 1, when year-long passes for fourth graders that get them into all national parks and other public lands that require an entrance fee became available.
“We’ve gotten quite a lot of local press, but as you know, it’s a big country, and it’s hard to get the word out on everything to everybody. So I'm sure there are some people who haven’t heard of it yet," said Julia Washburn, the Every Kid in a Park team education lead for the Park Service as well as the associate director for Interpretation, Education and Volunteers for the agency.
Part of the decision to create the program, the administration said back in February, was the fact that young people are spending more time in front of TV screens and computer monitors than outside, "and that means they are missing out on valuable opportunities to explore, learn and play in the spectacular outdoor places that belong to all of them."
Between the president's announcement and September 1, the Park Service and other Interior Department agencies and the Agriculture Department have been working to implement the program. Tasks they took on ranged from building a website to promote the program, designing the program and coming up with the requisite paperwork and authorities to implement it, designing a commemorative pass for fourth graders, and training field staff with the Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and even marine sancturaries personnel on the program and its implementation.
When the program officially was launched September 1, fourth-grade teachers could fill out the paperwork that generates paper passes their students can use to get into public lands such as national parks where entrance fees are charged. Once at a park or other federal lands, the paper passes are exchanged for a plastic pass that provides free entry into public lands until August 31, 2016.
“We’ve had over 1 million downloads of the Every Kid in the Parks paper pass, from the website, and the last I’ve heard we’ve had 5,000 paper passes exchanged at public lands for the durable plastic pass." Ms. Washburn said last week. "It’s only been around for two-and-a-half months and we’re already getting a good turnout."
With more publicity about the program coming through partnerships with groups such as Scholastic, the Boy and Girl Scouts and Boys and Girls clubs, with transportation grants through the National Park Foundation intended to make it easier for fourth graders and their families to get to public lands, and with school field trips and next summer's traditional vacation season yet to come, the Park Service official was optimistic more and more youngsters would get involved with the program.
"I think we’re going to get a lot of exchanges for the summertime, when people actually go on vacation," she said.
The program cost between $1.5 million and $2 million to launch, that dollar amount should shrink in future years as a good deal of that total went to start-up costs, said Ms. Washburn. And really, she added, that's a small amount to invest in getting youngsters interested in the outdoors.
“People worry about how much money did it cost, and how much money are we going to lose based on the lost fee revenue, and I actually think that this is a huge investment in the future," she said. "If it works the way it’s planned and organized and if we continue to promote it, I think we’re going to see the return for many years, multiple times over, because what we’re doing is we’re developing a cadre of young people who will not just bring their families now, but they’re going to keep coming back and they’re going to bring their own children and their own grandchildren for years to come.
"So I think we’re going to reap financial rewards from this program, in addition to just allowing a whole new generation who deserve to benefit from these places, allowing them access, and inviting them.”
Comments
It's disturbing to me that an Associate Director of the NPS doesn't seem to know within 25% what her program actually cost. It also seems wishful thinking that a single or occasional childhood visit will "build a cadre..." of park supporters, comrades.
Ms. Washburn should have the means to calculate net costs. Maybe she was distracted or something. Point is, this program has real merit. It was modeled on the successful campaign that the National Ski Area Association has been conducting for several years.