Join us April 16th - 24th as America celebrates National Park Week - a chance to explore, learn, share, and give back in the nation’s 394 national parks. Take this opportunity to come out and discover, or RE-discover, 84 million acres of the world’s most spectacular scenery, historic landmarks and cultural treasures. 

Best of all…it’s FREE. Visit any of America's national parks and enjoy free admission all week long. 

Go to www.nationalparkweek.org to learn more and discover the ways you can participate in National Park Week.

You are the part-owner of 84 million acres of the world’s most treasured landscapes, ecosystems, and historical sites — all protected in America’s nearly 400 national parks. Chartered by Congress, the National Park Foundation is the official charity of America’s national parks. We work hand in hand with the National Park Service to help connect you and all Americans to the parks, and to make sure that they are preserved for the generations who will follow.

Join us — This Is Your Land. www.nationalparks.org

Celebrating Legacies – From Civil War to Civil Rights

To kick-off National Park Week April 16-24, 2011, the African American Experience Fund (AAEF) will hold its 10th Anniversary Fundraising Gala, Celebrating Legacies – from Civil War to Civil Rights on Friday, April 15 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC.

The event will honor Alabama based civil rights attorney Fred Gray, a living legend whose work exemplifies deeply held principles that have advanced equality and changed the course of American history. Also being honored are Dr. Frank Smith, the leading force behind the creation of the African American Civil War Memorial, located in the District of Columbia and The Walt Disney Company AAEF’s largest corporate donor.

Funds raised through the Gala, will help preserve and promote national historic sites that tell the legendary stories of African American history and culture through our national parks.

For tickets and sponsorships visit www.aaexperience.org or contact Lydia Sermons, AAEF executive director at LSermons@nationalparks.org.

As part of the National Park Foundation’s Park Stewards program, Students from Woodstock Union High School in Vermont recently headed into the field to collect dragonfly nymphs, soil and leaf litter in Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. By studying mercury levels in the park’s ecosystem as part of their Park Stewards project, the students were able to determine the mercury levels in dragonflies - an indicator species of the health of a food chain – and contribute valuable data to a region-wide mercury study being conducted by the University of Maine and the Schoodic Education Research Center Institute, in Acadia National Park (among others).

Through this Park Stewards project engaging students in real-world science, additional partnerships flourished. Woodstock Union High School in Vermont teamed with Stevens High School in New Hampshire to collect data samples. Dartmouth biology professor and ecotoxicologist, Doctor Celia Chen, offered her expertise and lab resources for sample analysis. And, through Dartmouth’s “GK-12 project,” both high schools received the benefit of having graduate students placed as scientific experts in their classrooms for the duration of the school year. This project is an exemplary example of how parks and teachers working together can activate curiosity, creativity, collaboration and conservation ethics in our youth.

To learn more and support programs like this click here!

National Park Foundation donor, Marci Rosenfeld, shares some of her favorite national park memories and why she supports the National Park Foundation.

“Over the years I have visited the National Parks with many of the most important people in my life including my closest friends and family. Driving cross country with my oldest friend we camped in the Great Smoky Mountains after arriving at dusk and later moving west were awed by the beauty of the Painted Desert. With a significant other I visited the Grand Canyon for white water rafting and our first overnight trek, carrying all of our camping equipment eight miles down into the canyon.  With a close cousin I was amazed at the drama of the Tetons and Yellowstone.  So the National Parks have allowed me to share incredible experiences with those I care about the most.” 

“NPF provides integral support for the parks through an official channel and is responsible for a wide range of programming that does everything from restore disaster areas to educate local youth starting as early as elementary school. The parks themselves provide an accessible space for families and friends to enjoy each other within a beautiful, peaceful setting. They also preserve our history as Americans, protect our natural environment and resources, and grant us the physical space to recharge mentally, physically, and spiritually.”

To learn how you can get involved, click here.

The 2011 White House Easter Egg is here!  To get your very own souvenir egg – or buy them as Easter gifts – visit easter.nationalparks.org. The souvenir eggs come in four unique colors and feature the stamped signatures of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The National Park Foundation produces and sells the official White House Easter Egg to help support the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. For more than a century, this national holiday tradition has been hosted on the South Lawn of the White House, one of our 394 national parks.

Congratulations to Mike and all of the 2010 winners!

To view more breathtaking winning photos, click here.

The North Face will donate $1 to the National Park Foundation for every individual who “checks in” at one of America’s nearly 400 national parks or at one of the many North Face retail locations across the country, through the new Facebook Places application. This exciting partnership aims to get more people outside while also giving back to America’s national parks and will result in a donation of up to $150,000 to NPF! So don’t forget to "check in" while you’re out!

This month, the Foundation announced their 2011 relationship with USA TODAY benefitting the Flight 93 National Memorial currently being built in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. USA TODAY has pledged to donate a portion of every EZ-Pay newspaper subscription to support the planting of trees throughout the Flight 93 National Memorial.  EZ-PAY removes the need for paper bills by automatically charging the subscriber’s credit card, thus reducing the overall carbon footprint.  This collaboration continues USA TODAY’s commitment to environmentally conscious business practices. 

The design of the Flight 93 National Memorial emphasizes tree planting as a means of restoring the former coal mine surrounding the crash site to its natural splendor.  A major reforestation effort will begin this year with the planting of a tree-lined walkway to the crash site and 40 memorial groves, one for each of the passengers and crew on board Flight 93.  When the memorial is completed, over 140,000 trees will have been planted.

For more information on the story of Flight 93 and the national memorial, visit www.honorflight93.org.

The National Park Foundation is the designated charity this spring in the Peace Cereal Giving Back program. For every Peace Cereal item sold between April 1st and June 30th, NPF will receive a contribution. Peace Cereal will donate a minimum of $7,500 to the National Park Foundation. As we head into National Park Week next month, Peace Cereal is offering you a chance to win too! Enter the National Park Sweepstakes from March 21st to April 20th and you could win one of several great prizes including a trip to a national park of your choice, gift cards to a sporting goods retailer, or a national park gift pack. All you have to do is submit your email address at www.peacecereal.com/npsweepstakes.

The National Park Foundation’s latest Electronic Field Trip (EFT), "Sea Change", aired on March 1st to students all across the country. This unique broadcast transported students to one of America's most serene national parks, Gulf Islands National Seashore, and explored how science is used to measure and manage both natural and human-influenced change. During the program it became clear that students are still extremely curious about the Gulf Oil Spill and its impact on the species of Gulf Islands. Among a range of questions about the science of managing and monitoring environmental change, hundreds of students called into the show to ask questions specifically about the oil spill.

The Electronic Field Trip program is a part of the Foundation's ongoing free series that turns America's national parks into America's best classrooms. A growing success, the last three EFT broadcasts have garnered a total of almost 350,000 viewers and participants! You can watch our most recent EFT, "Sea Change" or explore all of our past programs here.