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By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune September 04. 2015 11:42AM Fourth-graders — and their families — can get into Crater Lake for free CRATER LAKE — If your child's in fourth grade and loves the view at Crater Lake, a new National Park Service program has an early Christmas gift for them. The Every Kid In A Park program, launched this week, provides free entry passes for students and their families. The passes, good through Aug. 31, 2016, cover everyone in the same vehicle, including up to three adults. To get the pass, interested youths can go to www.everykidinapark.gov , complete a short fill-in-the-blank "diary" entry about a trip they want to take to a national park, and get the pass at the end.  It's an initiative intended to expose more youths to national parks as the countdown to the department's centennial birthday — Aug. 25, 2016 — begins.  "We’re trying to look to the future as much as to the past. We’re trying to engage that next generation," Parks Service spokeswoman Kathy Kupper said.  The pass covers more than 2,000 parks and other federally managed sites. National parks officials say the program will be paid for with a $45 million budget increase to the U.S. Department of Interior's proposed $12.9 billion budget in 2016, with $20 million designated for National Park Service youth activities.  Kupper said those youth activities include programs like Every Kid In A Park, along with youth internships and service and outreach programs headed up by children and teens.  “There are a number of different initiatives,” Kupper said. "Different programs like that where we’re employing youth.” Crater Lake National Park spokeswoman Marsha McCabe said youths 16 and under already get into many national park facilities for free, but that this program extends that to family and friends the fourth-graders bring along with them. "Part of the hope is that maybe they'll come back to Crater Lake or other federal land management agencies with their family," McCabe said. "At Crater Lake we already serve a lot of fourth-graders in our school program. But we certainly want to reach out to even more."  To complete the activity and get the pass, or for more information, visit www.everykidinapark.gov .  Reach reporter Ryan Pfeil at 541-776-4468 or [email protected] . Follow him at www.twitter.com/ryanpfeil . http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20150904/NEWS/150909795 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->