29 Jul Closing Thoughts
I can’t believe its already time to write my final blog. I feel like the summer has raced by, though with much to show for it. The time past between my last blog entry and this one includes some of my best memories of my internship. We celebrated Latino Conservation Week with fun, education and events that celebrate the life long invitation to Our Parks.
Here at Biscayne National Park, we don’t have our own NPS concession for boat tours and the county concession we use can get quite expensive for families at $30 a person. So, for Latino Conservation Week, we wanted to focus on getting people out on to the water, because well, we are 95% water! And what a hit it was! We managed to get a total of 71 participants out on canoe tours between the two Saturdays we celebrated, including peoples of all ages and heritages! We had visitors from Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Peru, Cuba and more!
Park Rangers and I offered bilingual interpretation as we glided on the glassy bay. We saw manatees, fish, crabs, mangroves, seagrass, and the most beautiful skies. We took part in the preservation of habitats and collected over 6 bags of marine debris! We laughed, we smiled, we contemplated, but for me the best part, by far, was being able to take out families and people that had visited the park time and time again and were never able to go out on the water, what to me if the true allure of this beautiful park. How incredible to see their faces light up and share my park experience. As I my internship here comes to a close, I can only hope to continue providing such enriching experiences as these. A huge thanks is due to the Hispanic Access Foundation and Biscayne National Park for the opportunity to be a part of peoples journey to find their park.
Participants of one of our canoe tours pose for a very happy picture after participating in an awesome coastal cleanup!
Check out my Facebook album for more pictures and cheers to all!
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