The National Park Foundation has announced a new grantmaking initiative designed to connect underserved audiences, primarily people of color, to the national park system.

The America's Best Idea Grants program, which takes its name from the upcoming six-part PBS documentary series The National Parks: America's Best Idea, will support efforts to develop outreach strategies and engagement programs for people who are traditionally underrepresented in the parks. To that end, NPF, in partnership with the San Francisco-based Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund and with additional funding from the Boston-based Popplestone Foundation, has awarded grants totaling $500,000 to thirty-five national parks.

Parks receiving grants range in location and size from the Salem Maritime National Historic Park in Massachusetts to Everglades National Park in Florida, Denali National Park in Alaska, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii. Wide-ranging in scope and appeal, the projects include sailing camps, wildlife education, contests, and hikes with park historians. Several programs, such as the one in Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, include targeted outreach to indigenous people.

"Universal access to the parks and engagement of diverse and underserved populations are important goals in the evolution of our national parks," said Ira Hirschfield, president of the Haas Fund. "It is our great hope that America's Best Idea will provide people in cities and towns across the country the chance to find meaning and inspiration in the story of the parks, and a chance to make these cherished places their own."