Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Thousands turn out to celebrate great outdoors
Annual event marks parks centennial, too
More than 3,000 people gathered at one of Las Vegas’ oldest city parks Saturday to celebrate Southern Nevada’s great outdoors and the National Park Service’s 100th birthday, organizers said.
Get Outdoors Nevada Day is an annual event to promote Southern Nevada’s state and city parks in one of the Outside Las Vegas Foundation’s largest outdoor events of the year.
The foundation hosts the event in partnership with a rotating jurisdiction — this year the event was hosted at Lorenzi Park, 3343 W. Washington Ave., by the city of Las Vegas, and next year’s event will be hosted by the city of Henderson.
“It gives our community a chance to celebrate our parks,” said Mauricia Baca, Outside Las Vegas’ executive director since 2010. “There’s so much to do, from climbing and kayaking to just having a picnic.”
To showcase all those outdoor activities, the event included a climbing wall and archery, fishing, kayak and biking demonstrations throughout the day from the event’s start at 9 a.m. until it ended at 2 p.m.
“It was a great day,” Baca said, “And I think we all had a wonderful time.”
About 3,000 people attended last year’s Get Outdoors Nevada Day, and this year’s event drew 3,250 people, she said.
More than 70 exhibitors spread across Lorenzi Park under white tents, showcasing information about Nevada’s parks and local businesses that cater to people who love the outdoors.
At one point in the day, the Mabel Hoggard Elementary School choir sang on the main stage to wish the National Park Service a happy 100th birthday. The theme of this year’s event was “Find your Park.”
“It’s important to find your city and state parks, then you find your national parks,” said Park Service spokeswoman Christie Vanouver. “We want to continue to be relevant for the next 100 years.”
During the event, volunteers handed out free national parks passes to fourth-graders. A main focus of the event is to inspire a love for parks and the outdoors in children.
Baca said there’s an entire industry built around outdoor activities and kids can make a career out of their love for national parks.
“Kids think that to work in a park or in the outdoors you have to be an ecologist, but any kind of person can find a job with the parks,” Baca said. “I hope we do inspire that love in them because it’s such a fun way to learn about their world.”
Beneath the largest tent at the event, watching their two children laugh and roll around in the grass, Josiah and Tamry Brown said they agreed.
“The kids love going to the parks and going in the grass and playing,” Tamry Brown said. She and her husband said they try to get their kids outside as often as possible.
“If they’re out and playing, they’re looking up,” she said. “They’re looking around instead of at their phones all day. They can’t learn anything like that.”