February 19, 2015
Every Kid in a Park Initiative
Today the President announced the "Every Kid in a Park: Discover Your Public Lands and
Waters" initiative, an interagency effort to provide both opportunities and means for every
4th Grader to get outdoors to a Federal, state, or local public park. The heads of all Federal
land and water management agencies have committed their collective support for this
initiative, to include the US Army Corps of Engineers. Below are links to two news releases
(USA Today and Washington Post) that appeared today regarding this national initiative.
While the President's announcement launches this program, the implementation is
targeted for the 2015/2016 school year. This gives all agencies time to organize and be
prepared to work with schools and partners to get 4th graders to our parks and recreation
sites. Mary and I will be working with all of you on what we can do within our existing
resources. Fortunately, many of our projects (and most of you) already have existing
programs and relationships with local schools across the nation, so this initiative can be
incorporated into those current programs. We also have many partners that work with
schools that can help with this initiative. As we did with America's Great Outdoors, we can
"co-brand" already planned events as well.
Enclosed are some FAQ's that the Federal
agencies have modified to suit our situations. We expect there may be questions as a result
of this Presidential announcement and associated media coverage, so we want our field folks
to at least be aware of it and be able to direct people to places for additional information. I
suspect we will have much more information over the next couple of months as the initiative
gains momentum. One important element that is not yet developed, and for which we do
not have a lot of information thus far, is the 4th Grader/family recreation pass that will
apparently be made available at some point. We suspect it will likely be similar to the
America the Beautiful Military Pass. We will provide further information in that regard as it
becomes available.
My POC is Mary Coulombe. She and her team will be working with
your NRM staff to get information to our field personnel to assist them should they get
questions as a result of this announcement. PAO will be sending information through their
chain as well.
As always, thanks for all you and your team continue to do every day.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02
/19/obama-free-national-park-admission/23640451/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2015/02/19/obama-launches-every-kid-in-a-park- initiative/
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