Blog Post Hayley Mortimer Sep 19, 2014

New Video Showcases Youth Who Love Gateway

New storytelling tool is part of a new approach for engaging the next generation of park visitors through the Your Park! Your Health! program.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an intern at Gateway National Recreational Area?

This urban oasis covers more than 26,000 acres of beachfront, salt marshes, grasslands, forest, and wildlife habitat—much of it just outside New York City. Having so much green space so close to one of the largest cities in the country offers a unique opportunity to share the wonders of the national parks with the young and diverse residents of the five boroughs and beyond.

NPCA’s Center for Park Management, in partnership with the National Park Service, developed a new video by National Park Experience to showcase an exciting internship program at Gateway. Through the Your Park! Your Health! program, young participants work for the park, teach workshops on camping and biking, and serve as ambassadors, sharing the park experience with their friends and families. NPCA hopes to use the video to spark a conversation about how the National Park Service and its partners can become more relevant and expand its audience through different programs and tools, especially in urban settings like this one. We also want to show the importance of having a talented workforce to protect places like Gateway and interpret its story for all Americans.

We hope this video will be the first of several mini-films that showcase different park stories and showcase new approaches for engaging the next generation of visitors.

About the author

  • Hayley Mortimer Former Vice President of Regional Operations

    Hayley Mortimer offers over twenty years of experience incubating and scaling up innovative solutions that meet a pressing public need. She currently manages our field program as Vice President of Regional Operations, which includes 55+ staff across the country.