Crystal Cove Conservancy receives 2022 ‘Every Kid Outdoors’ grant.
NATIONAL PARK TRUST AND USDA FOREST SERVICE SELECT CRYSTAL COVE CONSERVANCY AS A 2022 EVERY KID OUTDOORS TRANSPORTATION GRANTEE
28 Grants Awarded Will Get Nearly 9,000 Kids Outside
Newport Coast, CA, (2/8/22) – Today, the National Park Trust is announced the first round of grantees for the Every Kid Outdoors Transportation Grants Program. In partnership with the USDA Forest Service, the National Park Trust developed the Every Kid Outdoors grant to support schools and organizations focused on connecting elementary school-aged youth to public parks, lands and waters.
For over a decade, National Park Trust has been a leader in youth outdoor programming and has been actively addressing the lack of transportation to outdoor spaces – one of the most significant barriers to kids getting outside and experiencing nature. This grant supports the Every Kid Outdoors program, a federal youth initiative designed to provide every 4th grader in the United States the opportunity to visit public lands and waters for free with their families. The Park Trust and the USDA Forest Service understand that the great outdoors is an excellent classroom and hope the experiences provided by this grant program will help kids establish lifelong connections with nature and become the next generation of park stewards.
Crystal Cove Conservancy received a $3000 award to support our work to engage 5th grade students attending our Project Crystal program. During Project Crystal, fifth grade students from across Orange County take part in a multi-week investigation to determine the best ways to help coastal sage scrub seedlings grow. Fifth grade students take part in a curriculum sequence that consists of 20-30 hours of learning, as they ask questions about changing landscapes, build a model of the ecosystem, make a hypothesis, collect data, and then analyze their data and share their findings back with Crystal Cove State Park. Field trips are bracketed by in-class lesson plans, and free training is provided to participating teachers.
“We’re so excited that our Project Crystal fifth graders are back in the park helping us and University of California, Irvine’s Center for Environmental Biology study ecological restoration,” said The Conservancy’s Vice President, Programs and Strategy, Sara Ludovise. “Thank you to our friends at National Park Trust for supporting our Project Crystal field trips this year.”
“We are delighted to expand our partnership with the USDA Forest Service by providing numerous nonprofits and schools across the country with Every Kid Outdoors Transportation Grants. These critical resources will allow thousands of children from underserved communities to discover our public lands and waters. For many of these students, it will be their first opportunity to explore the great outdoors” said Grace Lee, executive director of National Park Trust.
This opportunity was made available to 501(c)3 non–profit organizations and schools from all over the United States looking for resources and funding to connect their community’s elementary school-aged kids with local public lands and waters. The Park Trust and USDA Forest Service awarded 28 grants, up to $5,000 each, to qualified applicants – totaling more than $110,000.
ABOUT NATIONAL PARK TRUST
National Park Trust is a non-profit dedicated to preserving our national parks. The Park Trust accomplishes this goal through land acquisition to expand and “complete” our national parks and by creating a pipeline of future park stewards by connecting kids to parks. Established in 1983, the Park Trust has preserved nearly 30,000 acres in 31 states, one U.S. Territory, and Washington, D.C. In addition, since 2009, National Park Trust has engaged more than 3 million kids and families with the great outdoors through their national Buddy Bison School Programs and annual Kids to Parks Day. Find out more about the Park Trust’s mission of preserving parks today and creating park stewards for tomorrow at www.parktrust.org.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Ivan Levin at 540.818.5818 or ivan@parktrust.org.