New Prizes to earn for your TRACK Trail Adventures!!

For the past year, we have been planting the seeds for new Kids in Parks experiences. In 2020, we introduced e-Adventures, mobile-friendly activities that echo our most popular brochures featured on our TRACK Trails. It was a hit! At the time, e-Adventures provided much-needed accessibility during COVID-19 by allowing kids and families to get outdoors and engage with nature no matter where they were. As our 12th-anniversary approaches, we are excited to build upon these changes and continue to advance the program.

Kids in Parks' most notable feature is the ability to earn prizes - Trail TRACKer Gear developed to make your next outdoor adventure more fun. From a nature journal to a backpack, these free incentives have been our way to encourage kids to get unplugged, outdoors, and connected with nature. Over the years, we have joyfully read your messages and comments sharing with us how excited you were to receive those first packages in the mail. Many Trail TRACKers then continued registering hikes with us and unlocking more prizes, if not all of them!

Our prize system has remained successful and enjoyed by our community of Trail TRACKers and their families. However, after 12 years of presenting the same incentives, we wondered what we could do to make it even better. In 2019, we sent out a survey to select Trail TRACKer families and partners, asking for their thoughts on the program and the prizes. After combining their feedback with some brainstorming of our own, we are excited to introduce a reimagined prize system designed to promote more engagement with both nature and the Kids in Parks program.

Next month, 15 new Adventure Cards will be replacing our current prizes, where Trail TRACKers will unlock a new card with each hike they TRACK. The cards cover various nature-themed topics,  featuring activities and guides for you to use when out exploring.

And like our current prizes, these waterproof cards will be sent via mail, along with a special Kids in Parks carabiner so you can take your cards on the go.

For Trail TRACKers who are enthusiasts of our TRACK Trail stickers: our stickers are the most popular of our incentives. So, we will continue to give out these collectible stickers for every KIP adventure registered online. However, we have softly introduced a new, compact, and handier Trail TRACKer Passport to collect your stickers in, retiring our old nature journal. If you have been a new registrant with us in the past couple of months, you have received this new booklet.

We are so grateful to create opportunities to encourage children and parents to improve wellness by turning to nature. So we hope you will enjoy these new prizes along with all future changes to come.  Stronger connections between children and parks cultivate stewards who will understand the value of our public lands. We have excitedly watched as those connections have grown, so we look forward to finding new ways to continue engaging kids and families with nature.

These new changes will begin during the first few weeks of August 2021. Where ALL Trail TRACKers, new or returning, will start earning the Adventure Cards hike-by-hike. That means, if you've already received all the Trail TRACKer gear from before, you now have 15 new prizes to earn! Previous progress and mileage will also not be lost.

We hope you will enjoy this new addition to Kids in Parks. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have.