Due to a budget deficit, the California Department of Finance (DOF) ordered a spending freeze across all state agencies for unspent General Fund dollars from 2021, 2022, and 2023. This budget freeze affects the Outdoor Equity Grants Program (OEP), which many Parks Now Coalition members have benefited from in years past and even had applied to for this year.
The other day, my daughter asked if it was safe for us to have a family beach day again. She immediately frowned when I reminded her that even if a nearby beach were open, we would have nowhere to park because the lots are closed. “So, only people close enough to walk there, get to go to the beach?” she asked. “How is that fair?”
A little under six years ago, a book was published that would make a profound impact on Lesford “Les” Duncan. It chronicled the first known all-African American expedition on Denali, the highest point in North America. When Les first read James Edward Mills’ The Adventure Gap, he saw himself in the book’s intersecting stories.
Ever since she could remember, Kim Moore Bailey was always more fascinated by her natural surroundings than the built environment. She fondly remembers spending hours in her backyard in Long Island, watching ants crawl across the patio. “I must’ve been about four years old,” Kim says. “I begged my mom for a cookie and promptly dropped it outside. Instead of scolding me, she brought a three-legged stool with a microscope and told me to wait and watch.”
