There is a particular kind of encouragement in hearing someone describe the first door that opened for them. On Thursday, August 27, a public online gathering will make room for several of those stories: young people who found their way into national-park work through service corps, internships, volunteering and youth crews.
The National Park Service, The Corps Network and the National Park Foundation are hosting Voices of Our Youth at 250: Journeys & Park Connections for Future Generations at 1 p.m. Eastern. The free 90-minute event is part of National Park Week and will include opening remarks, a panel discussion and audience questions. It will be available on Zoom and the NPS Youth and Young Adult Programs Facebook page, with live captioning and ASL interpretation.
Five routes into work that matters
The Park Service has named five panelists whose work spans a remarkably broad map. Logan Reabuck is a traditional-trades advancement intern at Andrew Johnson National Historic Site. Conner Dube works with Friends of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. Sash Newton completed a structural fire-protection internship at Mesa Verde National Park. Sarah Treska is a Fish and Feathers intern at Cape Cod National Seashore, and Shasta Hinkle leads a Youth Conservation Corps crew at Mount Rainier National Park.
Those titles are useful because they make the invitation tangible. Public-land stewardship is not a single job performed by a single kind of person. It includes trail work, historic preservation, visitor learning, wildlife-focused programs and practical safety work. The panel is designed to let young participants explain what drew them in and how those experiences shaped their connection to parks.
A story that starts with showing up
Reabuck’s biography gives the larger idea a human scale. The Park Service says his traditional-trades internship has included work around historic sites and veterans’ headstones, repairing washed-out brick sidewalks, responding to storm-felled limbs and learning about native plants and wildlife. The point is not that every young person will follow the same route. It is that a first assignment can lead to a clearer sense of where one belongs.
Hinkle’s work at Mount Rainier offers another version of that path. The Park Service says she helps maintain trails while teaching youth about the outdoors, with an emphasis on helping them explore their capabilities and make their own informed choices. That is a generous idea for a public program: a newcomer does not need to arrive as an expert to take the next useful step.
An accessible invitation to listen in
Because this is a virtual event, its park connections can reach beyond a single trailhead or visitor center. Families, students, prospective volunteers and curious neighbors can hear directly from people whose experience runs from a local crew to a national park internship. The program is open to the public, will be recorded, and includes a question-and-answer session.
The gathering is a preview, not a report of an event already held. But it is a cheerful one: five young people, several partners and an open digital room set aside for the stories behind a career, a volunteer shift or a first day outdoors. Sometimes a practical way forward begins with simply hearing how someone else found theirs.
How to join
Voices of Our Youth at 250 is scheduled for Thursday, August 27, 2026, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern. The National Park Service lists it as free and open to the public; registration and current program details are available on the official event page.
Sources
- National Park Service: Voices of Our Youth at 250 Virtual Event (accessed August 25, 2026)
- National Park Service: National Park Service to Host “Voices of Our Youth at 250” Virtual Event Celebrating Youth Engagement in National Parks (August 20, 2026)
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