3rd annual Great Task Youth Programs at Gettysburg announced

Gettysburg National Military Park has announced details for its third annual “Great Task” Youth Programs in Community Service and Leadership programs to be held this summer and fall. The free programs are designed for student or youth groups in grade levels 7 to 12 that are looking for intensive leadership and character-building experiences that go beyond traditional curriculum-based field trips.

Applications will be accepted from now through May for two-day Great Task excursions to be scheduled from mid-July to mid-October. Limited travel and accommodation scholarships are available for qualifying groups.

Selected participants of the Great Task program will follow in the footsteps of the men and women who made history at Gettysburg. With park rangers, educators and living historians, students will explore the 7,000-acre battlefield park and participate in hands-on learning activities that bring the past to life while illuminating the possibilities of the future.

Participating youth then work to apply lessons of leadership and good character to identified community service projects in their own home communities. Participants include:  LULAC National Educational Service Center in Philadelphia; The Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond, Virginia; STEAM Academy in York, Pennsylvania; the New York City Police Athletic League; U.S. Navy Sea Cadet Corps; European Democracy Youth Conference; and more.

To learn more about these opportunities and to receive an application packet, group leaders and teachers can email the Education Office at [email protected].

“The Great Task” initiative is named for a line in President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from November 19, 1863 when he said: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…”