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National Park Service Yellowstone National Park Al Nash ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yellowstone National Park Receives “Ticket To Ride” Grant From The National Park Foundation Yellowstone National Park was selected to receive a 2014 Ticket to Ride grant from the National Park Foundation (NPF), the official charity of America’s national parks, for Yellowstone’s Connecting Native American Youth to Yellowstone program. The NPF Ticket to Ride program, supported by a grant from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, helps students explore the outdoors by providing transportation and program support to national parks around the country. The grant is for the 2014/2015 school year. Now in its third year and with continued support from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund and Disney Friends for Change, Ticket to Ride provides financial resources for transportation and in-park educational programming that make national park field trips possible for schools across the country. The grant from Disney will help more than 60,000 students across the nation visit and learn in their local national parks this school year. Disney is committed to connecting kids with nature, ensuring they appreciate and understand the beauty and value of our natural resources. Ticket to Ride funding will help provide bus transportation for most of the 300 students, teachers and chaperones from tribal schools who will participate in Expedition Yellowstone, a residential, curriculum-based education program for grades 4 – 8, or in a ranger-led Yellowstone Field Trip program from March through May 2015. The Yellowstone Park Foundation, the park’s primary fundraiser, will support full or partial scholarships for many of the students participating in the Expedition Yellowstone program. Some schools partnering with Yellowstone this spring include St. Francis Indian School from South Dakota; Wyoming Indian Elementary School; Hardin Intermediate, Hardin Middle, Hardin High, Crow Agency, Fort Smith, and Lame Deer schools from Montana. For many students, the Ticket to Ride field trip will be their first visit to a national park. Welcoming Native American youth to the lands their ancestors walked upon will strengthen relationships between Yellowstone and its associated tribes. By engaging youth in healthy outdoor physical activities and hands-on, place-based, interactive learning, the park hopes to open the doors to future stewardship and preservation of ecosystems in and beyond the Park, as well as to reinforce the cultural and historical value of tribal contributions to this landscape. For information about the National Park Foundation, go to www.nationalparks.org. For information about the Yellowstone Park Foundation or to donate toward Expedition Yellowstone student scholarships and field trips, go to www.ypf.org. - www.nps.gov/yell -
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Last updated: March 4, 2015