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Youths will record Lassen park experiences; grant provides daypacks, CDs so ...

For 15 years many youngsters from around Northern California have had their first outdoors experience through the youth camping program at Lassen Volcanic National Park .

Now they'll be hauling daypacks stuffed full of field guides, exploration tools and a digital camera to expand and document their treks, said Jeff Gerbic, a Lassen interpretive ranger. While the packs will stay at Lassen for the next camper, the boy or girl who last used it will leave with a compact disc loaded with photos and videos from their time at Lassen.

"(It's) so the experience can go home with them, and they can reconnect with it at any time," Gerbic said.

A $10,000 grant from the National Park Foundation, as part of the America's Best Idea program, paid for the packs, Gerbic said. The program was inspired by Ken Burns' film "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," a 12-hour documentary about the country's national parks.

Among the 18 other grants given by the National Park Foundation are funds for transporting low-income youth to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks near Fresno, developing education programs for black youths at Fort Sumter National Monument in South Carolina, and connecting American Indian students with their elders during a visit to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.

The Lassen Park Foundation has passed out grants of its own for the past 15 years, providing up to $1,000 to nonprofit youth groups and schools to "help introduce camping and Lassen Volcanic National Park to youth from backgrounds of minimal resources," according to the foundation's website. The grants pay for three- to seven-day campouts for 18 youths and seven adults at Lassen's Crags group campsite, covering transportation, food and equipment costs.

"Some of these kids haven't been out in the mountains or the forest like this," said Karen Haner, spokeswoman at Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Using the gear in the new packs, the kids will be encouraged to explore their new surroundings through photo scavenger hunts directed by park rangers, she said.

The youth camping program has drawn groups from Susanville to San Francisco, said Jane Ziad, Lassen Park Foundation executive director. Each year about 200 youngsters take part in the program.

The new packs and their load of supplies will add to the outings, she said.

"I think they will record more about what they saw and their experience there," Ziad said.

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National Parks – Acadia, Washington D.C., Great Smoky Mountains, Mammoth Cave, Theodore Roosevelt, Big Bend National Park, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Point Reyes, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic, Glacier, Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone, Mammoth, Yosemite, Kilauea Volcano Pu`u `O`o’s crater, Mount St.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks and middle and south forks of the Kings River and north fork of the Kern River, Tulare and Fresno counties, California, draft general management plan and comprehensive river management plan, environmental impact statement

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