National Get Outdoors Day

Date: May 18, 2012
Contact: Bill Martin, [phone] x 11

Fort Sumter National Monument will host a National Get Outdoors Day (GO Day) event at Liberty Square in downtown Charleston from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 9, 2012. This GO Day event will offer a mix of information centers and active fun areas - places where guests, and especially kids, can play with historic games and toys, play games that are ecologically related to the Low Country, and visit with area organizations about outdoor recreational opportunities and healthy living. Partners for this event include the South Carolina Aquarium, Boy Scouts of America, the US Forest Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, among others. Photo opportunities with National Park Trust mascot Buddy the Bison and US Forest Service mascot Smokey Bear will be provided. The event and visitor center are free.

GO Day is an outgrowth of the Get Outdoors USA! campaign, which encourages Americans, especially our youth, to seek out healthy, active outdoor lives and embrace our parks, forests, refuges and other public lands and waters. Last year, over 117 official GO Day sites across the nation from Kingman Island in Washington, D.C. to the Big Bear Discovery Center in the San Bernardino National Forest welcomed tens of thousands of new faces to the joy and benefits of the great outdoors.

Fort Sumter National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service. The Fort Sumter Visitor Education Center at Liberty Square is located at 340 Concord Street, in Charleston, South Carolina. The site is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except for New Year's, Thanksgiving and Christmas Days. For more information, call the park at [phone].