Engaging diverse youth and young adults to address priority projects in parks.
The National Park Foundation (NPF) works with national parks and other partner organizations to engage diverse youth and young adults as they explore future outdoor careers, learn practical field skills, and develop confidence as emerging leaders — all while helping protect our national parks. Service corps members develop a deep connection to national parks through a variety of activities.
Service corps offer participants an opportunity to work for several weeks on a professionally supervised team within a national park site to address some of the critical issues facing the national park system. Each year, parks determine their top-priority projects that need to be addressed and work with partner organizations to organize for service corps crews to address these needs. Corps projects include building and restoring trails, removing invasive species and restoring habitats, conducting prescribed burns and fighting wildfires, preserving historic structures, installing fencing and other park infrastructure, planting trees, reclaiming abandoned lots, operating farms and gardens, landscaping and xeriscaping, restoring streams, and more.
The Leaders of Color crew is an opportunity to promote leadership development in the environmental field for members of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. This initiative supported the critical needs of three parks, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument, and Mesa Verde National Park, through backlog trails work and invasive species removal, while fostering a career pathway from service corps to NPS for BIPOC participants.
The Guardians of the Trail Youth Intern Program is designed to address critical needs within Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Due to several compounding natural disasters in the past few years, many trails in the park have been closed or inaccessible. This project focused on rehabilitating those trails, removing invasive species, and planting native species.
Like many national park units, both visitation and usage of New River Gorge National Park & Preserve’s trail system have spiked in recent years. This growth has become even more pronounced as many miles of new trails have been installed. The service corps crew addressed top-priority park needs including corridor clearing, tree and vegetation removal, trailhead mowing, signage, drainage and waterbar maintenance, and repairing failed trails and structures of stone and timber, including bridges, all resulting in tangible improvement for park visitors.
YouthWork uses a collaborative approach to provide vulnerable young adults ages 16-26+ with hands-on experience as they complete priority projects for various partners, including national parks. The service corps activities completed by YouthWork are mutually beneficial for both the national park sites and the service corps members. This group made significant improvements to these national park sites through recreation projects, accessibility improvements, deferred maintenance, and necessary repair and restoration of national park structures and natural resource assets.
