U.S. National Park Service to receive $100 million, largest grant in its history | National Parks
The official nonprofit organization of the U.S. National Park Service is set to receive the largest grant in its history, a $100 million donation that the fundraising group has described as transformative for the country’s national parks.
The National Park Foundation, created by Congress in the 1960s to support national parks, will receive the gift from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. The park foundation described the donation Monday as the largest grant in history to benefit U.S. national parks.
The money will be used to address the needs of the country’s more than 400 national parks, said Will Shafroth, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation.
The foundation hopes to announce the first round of grants from the donation later this year, Shafroth said.
It remains to be seen how the money will be used. But one of the foundation’s priorities is restoring coral reefs in Biscayne National Park in Florida, Shafroth said, while another priority is restoring trout species in national parks in the West. Those areas are among the foundation’s recent investments.
In addition to funding initiatives to protect fragile ecosystems and species, Shafroth said the money would also be used to create opportunities for young people to visit national parks.
“This grant will allow us to strengthen our efforts to ensure that our national parks are accessible to all, for generations to come,” he said.
The system’s hundreds of units include national parks, memorials, monuments, historic sites, and other locations. It includes well-known national parks such as Yellowstone, primarily in Wyoming, and Yosemite in California, as well as beloved sites such as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It also includes preserved areas that are less accessible to many people, such as Buck Island Reef National Monument in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The National Park Foundation is currently conducting its $1 billion fundraising campaign to support the parks. Lilly Endowment made this donation to support that effort, said N Clay Robbins, Lilly’s chairman and CEO.
“We believe the National Park Foundation’s campaign will enhance programming and foster the future vibrancy of our nation’s wonderful system of parks, monuments and historic sites,” Robbins said.
