This program utilizes qualified non-profit youth- and veteran-serving organizations to carry out appropriate natural and cultural resource conservation, education, volunteer service and education…

American Conservation Experience (ACE) received a $247,413.12 Cooperative Agreement from the National Park Service (NPS) under the Youth and Veteran Organizations Conservation Activities program (CFDA 15.931), awarded August 13, 2025, with completion by December 31, 2027. The award funds ACE to recruit and place interns at Redwood National Park in Crescent City, California, to support critical visitor services and park operations during peak season. Intern deliverables include staffing visitor centers to maintain extended operating hours, managing phone and email communications, providing trail safety messaging, updating trail condition information, and delivering interpretive educational programming to the general public.

This cooperative agreement represents NPS's utilization of qualified non-profit organizations to address resource management needs while simultaneously creating career development and workforce training opportunities for youth participants. The intern placements enable Redwood National Park to sustain front-line visitor services and operational functions that would otherwise be constrained by staffing limitations, while participants gain professional experience in natural and cultural resource conservation, visitor services, and park management operations.

This program utilizes qualified non-profit youth- and veteran-serving organizations to carry out appropriate natural and cultural resource conservation, education, volunteer service and education projects on department of the interior lands through authorized national park service programs. This project aims to ensure the park can maintain open hours of visitor centers in the peak season at redwood national park. Interns will be selected to work closely with national park service staff to work at visitor centers, answer phone calls emails, provide trail safety messaging, update trail condition changes, provide interpretive educational programming, and support other front-line functions. Beneficiaries include private non-profit institutions and organizations public and private non-profit academic institutions state and local government agencies quasi-public non-profit institutions and organizations that support youth and young adult career training and development, and education in the areas of natural and or cultural resource conservation and management. Individuals families students and the general public will receive a benefit from the development and execution of these programs and projects.