The Centennial: You say it's your birthday? Well it's my birthday too!

Full disclosure: This blog is produced by National Park Service employees in their free time. None of it is officially guided, approved, managed, or permitted by NPS. It should not be taken as anything official, and any content from it should not be considered the opinion of the National Park Service. What I'm really try to say is that this is a blog about the National Park Service, not a National Park Service Blog. To be honest we don't even know if we're really allowed to have this blog, but no one has yelled at us to stop yet, so it's probably ok.

So, this has been a BIG thing in planning, but we weren't allowed to share any of it publicly until it was officially announced. It been hard to keep it quiet, because as Parkies we want to scream about all the amazing things in NPS until someone throws us off the edge of the Grand Canyon. Now that it's all public, here goes:

The National Park Service turns 100 in 2016! And because we're just *that* cool we're gonna make our party so big that it won't even fit in a whole year, let alone a day!

It's been branded as the Centennial movement and there's a huge push to ensure we're still a relevant organization. Some parts of our mission are simple, like protecting natural sites from development. Others are a bit different, because they focus on remembering powerful events that shaped us as a country. Some of these sites are well known, like Appomattox Court House National Historical Park where the Civil war ended, or Ellis Island where millions of immigrants passed through on their way to the United States. Others are less well known, especially those from the modern era. Places like  César E. Chávez National Monument in California or The Stonewall Inn (and surrounding area) that is considered one of the most important sites of the LGBT civil rights movement.

Almost every major city has a National Park Service presence, but many people only associate the idea of the National Parks with places out West that they may never get to see. The Park Service is doing it's best to educate the public about how we can serve them, even if they don't make a multi-state trip to go Visit the Red Rocks of Zion or the lush rain forests of Olympic. We want to help people find their park, and there's going to be a TON of work on our part to do so.

The public facing focus of the Centennial is going to be the Find Your Park campaign! This is going to be a HUGE push to get people to come join us in the parks. Think TV, magazines, billboards, newspapers, social media, movies, EVERYTHING! As a serious Parkie this just makes me want to Squee with joy! We dump every ounce of our energy into trying to get people to enjoy the places we protect for them and so many people don't even know we exist. It will be really good to (hopefully) see people realize that we exist to serve THEM. Everything we do is for the general public and we really want them to come take advantage of it.

We've got big tie-ins coming as well. You know what people like? Parades! You know what one of the biggest parades on earth is? The Rose Parade! You know how many countries the Rose Parade is broadcast to? 200! You know what the theme of the 2016 Rose Parade is gonna be? THE FREAKING NATIONAL PARKS! Seriously, the amount of Parkie Pride is almost oozing out of my pores right now!

You know what else people like? Movies! You like having your eyeballs filled with giant pictures of beautiful places THAT BELONG TO YOU? We're gonna do that too! Can't say more yet, but just know that it will be awesome!

Well, there's a ball of awesome about the great stuff coming in the next year. If you want up to the minute info both the National Park Foundation Facebook page and the official National Park Service Facebook page will both be overflowing with info about all the cool stuff we're doing. Keep an eye on them and get out and enjoy it, because in the end it's EVERYBODY'S party!