For the 15th year in a row, the President (sharing this tradition with the previous two presidents), has declared June as Great Outdoors Month®. He is joined by all 50 governors in celebrating the health and economic benefits of being outside and enjoying America’s lands and waters. Coordinated by the American Recreation Coalition, this event, whose participants, sponsors and supporters include hundreds of recreation, nature and outdoor organizations including state park departments, major city park and recreation agencies, and federal public agencies, reaches 150 million Americans each June.
Now that we are more than halfway through the month, there have already been many great events. Great Outdoors month kicked off on Saturday May 20th, with Kids to Parks Day hosted by the National Park Trust. This amazing day attracted more than one million participant in a national day of fun on public lands throughout the country.
On the Saturday June 2nd, the American Hiking Society hosted National Trails Day, a day that encouraged Americans of all ages and abilities to find their own adventure on the trail and discover their unique story at one of the thousands of events that were hosted throughout the country.
On June 3-11, the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation hosted National Fishing and Boating Week. In an effort to get more kids and families week most states offer free fishing days during this week. These are days where anglers are allowed to fish on public bodies of water without a fishing license.
Starting in June and then throughout the summer, the Association of Marina Industries and Discover Boating host National Marina Days, a nationwide boating event dedicated to grow boating participation across North America. Marinas across the United States open their doors to the public to show off the boating lifestyle and encourage non-boaters to get out on the water.
On Saturday, June 10th the American Recreation Coalition held National Get Outdoors Day, a day focused on connecting families and kids to the great outdoors and encourage visits to their local public lands.
And the fun isn’t done, on June 16th, service and conservation corps volunteers gathered in Washington, D.C. from across the country to help restore parts of the National Mall, Rock Creek Park, Theodore Roosevelt Island and more during The Corps Network’s National Great Outdoors Day of Service.
After that, the National Wildlife Federation launches the Great American Campout, an annual event to inspire people of all ages to camp in their backyards, neighborhoods, parks and campgrounds, as a way to connect with nature and wildlife. On June 24th, we’ll celebrate everyone who gets outdoors and goes camping this Great American Campout day and then continues to camp all summer long.
Now in celebration of the 13th year of the Great American Campout, The National Wildlife Federation gives you 5,000 new reasons to pledge to campout and help wildlife! If we reach our goal of 150,000 pledges, NWF will donate 5,000 native trees to its Trees for Wildlife program.
And finally on June 24th and 25th, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration highlights our national marine sanctuaries as iconic recreation destinations during the Get Into Your Sanctuary celebration.
And if you can’t make it to one of these fantastic events, you can celebrate by just getting outside and having fun!
Where will you camp this summer? Tell us in the comments below.
Pledge to camp as part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great American Campout
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When I was a kid, we spent 75% of the day outside and 25% inside. It’s the total opposite in today’s world. So when we get the chance to take a break from our scheduled lives, we try and make the most of it. I try to get to two new trails a month with the boys.
We’re lucky to live in a place where there are tons of great things to do outside, and I’m sure you do too! It takes just a little effort, but the payoff is tremendous. My sons are proud of the fact that I work to protect the great outdoors. Although I make films for television, I’m tasked with inspiring people to create their own adventures. I’ll talk more about that in my next post, which will detail a day in the life of production here at NWF.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed a quick clip of our day at Great Falls and I hope that you get to have your own adventure. For more information about finding nature near you, visit naturefind. Or if you’d like some fun activities to do when you’re outside, visit our Be Out There site.
Cheers!
National Wildlife Federation’s Storytelling Video Diary Series shares the candid tales of 10 NWF staffers from around the country; armed with their cameras in the Great Lakes, California, South Dakota, the Pacific Northwest, Northern Virginia, and Washington, DC, these nine staffers will share with you their individual trials, epiphanies and stories as they unfold in their daily adventures.
A new report was released last week which outlined how obesity threatens America’s future. The report revealed that obesity rates climbed over the past year in 16 states, and not a single state reported a decline in the proportion of excessively overweight residents. Over 2 million children in America are obese and more than 30 % of people in more than 12 states are obese. In only four years, ELEVEN states joined that startling statistic. This dramatic shift over just a few years is frightening, so I couldn’t help but wonder, what is causing this striking change?
Granted, childhood obesity is certainly a complex multi-faceted problem, which needs to be tackled from a variety of angles. However, a very easily-identifiable starting point is increasing the amount of time we spend outdoors, whether it’s playing, sightseeing, or even something as routine as commuting to work or school. So how do we address these issues in a meaningful way as a nation?
Luckily, Michelle Obama has made this issue a priority and launched the Let’s Move Outside campaign in a fight to address and end the childhood obesity epidemic. The First Lady rightly points out,
“Today, children experience a very different lifestyle. Walks to and from school have been replaced by car and bus rides. Eight to eighteen year old adolescents are spending an average of 7.5 hours a day using entertainment media instead of going outside.”
While the First Lady has brought the sweeping obesity epidemic to our nation’s attention, key Congressional leaders are taking steps to cut off dedicated federal funding for bicycling and walking; a cut that impacts both recreation but also safety.
House Transportation Chairman John Mica (R-FL) announced today that his transportation bill will eliminate dedicated funding for bicycling and walking, including Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School and the Recreational Trails Program. This will discourage states from choosing to spend their dollars on these activities that are “not in the federal interest.”
Not in the federal interest? Funding for biking and walking projects only accounts for 1.5% of the federal transportation budget and yet make up 12 percent of all trips in the US. The spending by our government shows us very clearly that they’re not interested in investing in fun and low-cost ways for people to work towards a healthy lifestyle by only allowing us funding to support more than 4 billion bicycle trips and 40 billion walking trips a year, including trips to work, school, shopping and for recreation and tourism.
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the lead Republican negotiator on the transportation bill, declared that one of his TOP THREE priorities for the transportation bill is to eliminate ‘frivolous spending for bike trails.’
Frivolous? In the past 6 months, TWO of my fellow co-workers were badly injured while riding their bikes to work because of the lack of safe biking trails in Washington, DC. Need more numbers? Two-thirds of all pedestrian deaths are on federally funded highways. One-third of children’s traffic deaths happen when children are walking or bicycling and are struck by cars. Bicycling and walking programs build sidewalks, crosswalks and bikeways—improving accessibility and saving lives. Any transportation cuts that affect the safety of children who opt to work/bike to school instead of taking the bus or car, should be targeted as negligent, short sighted and costly in the long run.
Cutting the funding to these programs not only makes it more difficult to encourage youth to get outside and walk or bike safely but it ultimately limits transportation alternatives, leaving no choice but to jump in a car. When obesity-associated annual hospital costs for children and youth are tripling over just a decade, we have a problem. If we expect people to adjust their lifestyles, they need clean, safe places to go outdoors and safe routes to get there.
What could be more of a federal priority than the health and well being of our children? Is cutting a that incredibly small figure of 1.5% of the federal transportation budget showing us how little the government cares about the health and wellness of our future workforce? Does the cost of bike trails really compare to the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of obesity associated hospital cost for children and youth? How short sighted is Congress to think that it is OK to spend millions/billions of dollars on health care costs for children and adults for obesity-related illnesses while not spending even a fraction of this cost for recreation improvements that would serve as preventative measure and limit obesity related disease?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a statistic, so I’m going to grab my bike and hit the trails before the feds take them away!
Join me, and take action: Contact your Members of Congress!
Join in the mission to advocate for and promote safe bicycling and walking to and from schools and in everyday life throughout the United States.
Learn more about the Be Out There movement to get kids outside. Find outdoor games, activities, and health tips for your children this summer!
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