Friends of the Smokies

Friends of the Smokies, a Great Smoky Mountains National Park preservation and protection group, has pledged to give $1 million to park programs in 2010. That is amazing news for GRSM fans! This charity is not run by the National Parks Service, but each year the NPS publishes a list of needs for the Great Smoky Mountains Park and the Friends of the Smokies charity works to provide funding for those needs.

The group said in a news release that the projects it helps support include Parks as Classrooms, which provides hands-on learning opportunities for more than 18,000 area children.

You might not know Friends of the Smokies directly, but if you’ve visited the park I guarantee that you’ve seen benefits of their work. They have thousands of friends/donators – you’ll recognize some of them by the special license plates they have on their cars.

You cna find out more at FriendsOfTheSmokies.org