Raising awareness for National Park preservation

Meet Jaden, Lauren, Logan, Mak, and Mariah: Five SUU Students who belong to the National Parks Jumpstart Program. Through this program, we get a dynamic, immersive, cross-curricular education with the many National Parks surrounding us serving as our classroom. We've explored six National Parks this year, and with each new trip we learned more and more about the beauty, wonder, biology, geology, culture, and history of the National Parks, and we have all gained a love and respect for them. 
     As you're all aware, we recently came out of the longest Government Shutdown in American history. The shutdown affected organizations all over, including the National Parks  Service.  Because of this, parks shut down or at least partially shut down, visitors centers closed, roads were blocked off, and parks were trashed and vandalized. Our trips had to be postponed, agenda changed, canceled, ect.. because of complications due to the shutdown. 
    Our group did some research on parks that were the most impacted by the shutdown, and we found out that Crater Lake National Park took a pretty big hit. Crater Lake's geographical location exposes the park to extreme weather conditions in the winter and requires a lot of work and maintenance to keep it running. 
     We decided that instead of a going on some crazy cruise over spring break we wanted to plan a trip to Crater Lake to experience Oregon's single National Park.  We want to explore some of the effects the shutdown had on the park. Through the documentation of our experience, we hope to raise awareness for the preservation of these parks. National Parks have affected the lives of people all over the globe. We hope that the public and our friends see how much the parks mean to us and how they benefit others.  
     Unfortunately, college isn't free and as freshmen in college our money goes to tuition, housing, and different flavors of ramen noodles. We're doing our best to save what money we can, but we simply don't have enough to make the trip. With Gas money, food, equipment, park fees, and snowshoes we need around $400 a person to make it happen. Our goal in this trip is to raise awareness for National Parks preservation by educating ourselves so we may educate others. Any donation, small or large, will be an incredible help and we will be grateful for the opportunity you're giving us. Thank you for taking the time to learn about our excursion.