July 5, 2012
Summer Successes and National Public Lands Day Registration
Congratulations on a great start to the summer recreation season! On National Kids to Parks Day, 2012, 20 Corps Lakes hosted events for 4,600 participants with the help of 30 partners. Quickly following was National Get Outdoors Day 2012, where 15 Corps sites hosted 10,600 participants with the help of 160 partners

Let's keep up the good work in planning some great National Public Lands Day (NPLD) events for 2012! NPLD is a Nation-wide event encouraging volunteers to participate in the care of their public lands. Last year, 127 Corps lakes hosted NPLD events with 12,300 volunteers removing 250,000 pounds of trash, cleaning 142 miles of roads and 1475 miles of shoreline, maintaining 100 miles of trails, and planting 1000 trees and shrubs.

Registration for NPLD can be completed online (http://www.publiclandsday.org/register-site ), and you can also use the PublicLandsDay.org website to get more such as tips for hosting NPLD sites, promotional materials, and suggestions for recruiting volunteers to your sites. Hosting an event for NPLD is an important way to get people motivated and inspired as they feel they are part of something BIG and their contributions are amplified by others. Momentum and enthusiasm can lead to real improvements in public lands. Let's see if we can have an even bigger impact this year!

In addition to branding your fall clean-up event as a NPLD event, all the NPLD events will automatically be co-branded as Let's Move Outside!(LMO!) events, part of the First Lady's "Let's Move!" initiative to keep children and families active and healthy.

Action: - If your event is a public lands service event on or around 29 September 2012, consider registering the event as a National Public Lands Day event (http://www.publiclandsday.org/register-site).

- If you're hosting an event this summer or fall that isn't a public service event, but still meets the goals of LMO!, get in touch with Chad Stuart to submit the event as a LMO! event.

- HQ USACE will submit all events registered online for NPLD or submitted directly to HQ as LMO! events directly to the LMO! office for co-branding. Additionally, we have green "Let's Move Outside" frisbees available to you to use as give-aways for your events. If you are interested, send Chad Stuart an email with a good mailing address for you. The Frisbees come 250 per box, and let us know if you need one or two boxes.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and taking the time to register your events. Please let me know if there's anything else we can do to support you from here. Chad Stuart, the incoming Career Assignment Program detail, will be starting July 9th.

Best,
Allison

Background Information about the National Public Lands Day and Let's Move Outside!:

National Public Lands Day, 29 September, 2012: National Public Lands Day (NPLD) is the nation's largest, single-day volunteer event for care of public lands in the United States. In 2012, NPLD will be held on September 29, 2012. Since the first NPLD in 1994, the event has grown and in 2011, more than 170,000 volunteers worked at 2,067 sites nation-wide. http://www.publiclandsday.org/register-site

Let's Move Outside!, ongoing event: Regular exercise in nature is proven to improve children's physical and mental health. Outdoor activity helps kids maintain a healthy weight, boosts their immunity and bone health and lowers stress. Let's Move Outside, administered by the Department of Interior, was created to get kids and families to take advantage of American's great outdoors-which abound in every city, town and community. And together, these agencies oversee more than one-fifth of the nation's land - including millions of acres of National forests, parks and trails. The Goal of Let's Move Outside events is to get kids outdoors to play and explore for at least 60 minutes (not necessarily continuous minutes) and help foster an appreciation of being outside.

Allison H. Ross

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