Over the last two decades, Park Friends Groups have been created to assist parks in supporting needed park programs and projects that have been beyond the reach of appropriated dollars. In contrast to Cooperating Associations which use the profits from sales of interpretive items in park bookstores to assist parks with their interpretive, educational and scientific activities, most Park Friends Groups are established to help support a wider variety of park activities (though they do support interpretive, educational and scientific activities) through fundraising, membership programs, friend raising, and awareness building. Today there are well over one hundred Park Friends Groups supporting parks across the country. These relationships may even extend beyond a single park to a cluster of related parks or even related public lands.
