Jackie Ostfeld

OAK Week kicked off on the first day with nearly 100 advocates attending, including more than 20 youth leaders from across the country, including California, Michigan, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington, D.C.

For many families around the country, dangerous heat and air quality are an everyday reality. They deserve greenery

Every year, the Outdoors Alliance for Kids hosts a week of advocacy events in D.C. to push for more equitable access to the outdoors for children and families across the country. As our membership and participation increases, it is heartening to see the event grow each year, with 2023 being our biggest one yet.

Sunshine and 80 degrees in Washington, DC – you couldn’t have asked for a better day to talk about the importance of nature. After a two-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Outdoors Alliance for Kids’ (OAK) annual OAK Week relaunched in person on Tuesday.

One program brings our national parks into reach for millions of youth. Since 2015, the Every Kid Outdoors program has offered free entry to more than 400 national parks and public wilderness areas for all fourth graders and their families. It enables every fourth grader, regardless of ability to pay, the opportunity to build a direct connection with nature.

Despite its challenges, 2021 was a transformative year for expanding equitable access to nature and building an outdoors that is truly for everyone. Many of those victories were due in no small part to the work done by Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All campaign.

Watch our virtual storytime and Q&A event with Ambreen Tariq, author of the new picture book Fatima's Great Outdoors! Hosted by the Outdoors Alliance for Kids and Penguin Kids.

I just got home from paradise, where I had the distinct honor of meeting Marvel’s newest superhero. Robbie Bond has a superpower—teleportation. With great power comes great responsibility, and Robbie is making sure kids across the US get to explore our public lands so that they will be inspired to protect our environment.

In 2019, the Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All program helped secure access to our national parks and public lands for nearly four million children.

Today’s kids get outdoors less than they ever have before. With time for recess and outdoor play shrinking, and many families lacking local access to parks, our kids are missing out on the incredible benefits to social, mental and physical health that come along with spending time in nature. This is a problem that will take everyone in our society to solve, starting with decision makers who can improve access to nearby nature and create public policy that gets kids outdoors.

Thanks to the passage of the Every Kid Outdoors Act, the youth we serve can spend their time exploring and enjoying the outdoors, rather than gearing up to fight to save the program for the third year in a row. Now we just need to make sure that every fourth grader in the U.S. has a chance to use their national park pass, and develop the lifelong connection to nature that all of us deserve to experience.