The National Park Service certainly has a lot to celebrate! National Park Week kicks off this weekend, which means you can visit any of the more than 400 national parks for free during April 16-24, 2016. This year, National Park Week is even more meaningful because the National Park Service will turn 100 years old in August 2016. As we celebrate National Park Week and the centennial of this amazing organization, I have been reflecting on both my personal and professional experiences regarding national parks.

I grew up playing outdoors and learning to kayak, rock climb, hike and camp in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas. While Kansas City does not have any large national parks nearby, it does have four National Historic Trails that pass through the area, which are managed by the National Park Service. In fact, the Santa Fe National Historic Trail went through the backyard of my childhood home. I went on to visit national parks around the country, and in college I worked as a trip guide leading others in exploring the outdoors. One of my most memorable trips was leading a seven-day winter camping and cross-country ski trip at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

My love for national parks runs so deep that they even featured prominently as I was preparing to get married. My husband and I celebrated our engagement at Everglades National Park by going kayaking. And at our wedding reception each table was named after a national park, usually a park close to where the guests sitting at that table were from. My table was called “Shenandoah National Park” because we live in Virginia.

Here I am kayaking with my soon-to-be husband at Everglades National Park. Photo courtesy Kelly Ingebritson.

My park adventures and subsequent education at University of Denver Sturm College of Law led me to my current career with The Conservation Fund, where I work as the Senior Government Relations Representative and assist the National Park Service, Fund staff and partners with conservation projects in the western United States. My work involves talking to Members of Congress, their staff, and other partners about protecting critical lands within some of America’s greatest places, like Olympic National Park in Washington, Lewis and Clark National Historical Park in Oregon, Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. It is exciting to work on conservation at places I explored when I was younger, like at Grand Teton National Park, and to continue to explore them today.

Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, where I enjoyed being a guide for a winter trip while I was in college. Photo by Stacy Funderburke.

One of my favorite current projects is at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, another place I explored while living in Colorado. The Fund is helping the National Park Service acquire a 2,500-acre property from a willing seller within the Park. The property is along a main public road, and its purchase will eliminate threats of development, increase public access for recreation, and improve Park management.

The Gunnison River runs through Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado. I enjoyed kayaking here when I lived in Colorado. Photo by Jeremy Sweat.

The project aims to utilize funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), our nation’s premier conservation funding source. Created by Congress in 1965, LWCF is a visionary and bipartisan commitment to safeguard natural areas, water resources and our cultural heritage, and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans. The program involves a simple idea: use revenues from the depletion of one natural resource—offshore oil and gas—to support the conservation of another precious resource—our land and water. The program has permanently protected nearly five million acres of public lands including national parks, local parks, forests, and other natural and cultural resources. Congress recently reauthorized LWCF for three years, and I am working with a coalition to reauthorize this important conservation-funding source permanently.

Since my national parks-themed wedding, my husband and I have added a new little adventurer to our family. Our daughter is now 18 months old, and she has given my conservation work a deeper meaning. Protecting the land for future generations is now truly personal for me, as I work to provide opportunities for my daughter and others to experience the great outdoors—and especially at our incredible national parks.

My husband and I enjoy taking our daughter hiking and look forward to visiting many national parks with her. Photo courtesy Kelly Ingebritson.