Family members and local kids held a bake sale along the South Platte River Saturday to raise funds for the public lands with the Mountain Mamas, a climate-focused non-profit, and Resistance Rangers, a group of both off-duty and former National Park Service (NPS) employees who are working to protect public spaces.
The bake sale was meant to draw awareness to the threats to national parks and outdoor spaces as Republicans have led the charge nationally to defund the park service.
The Trump administration has proposed a 30% cut to NPS funding for the next fiscal year. This cut would be the largest in the agency’s history. Additionally, congressional Republicans are proposing selling off millions of acres of public lands, with 14 million acres at risk of being sold in Colorado alone.
“While we hope everyone enjoys some treats today, we are here for a very serious reason because our public lands are under attack,” said Sara Kuntzler, the Colorado State director of Mountain Mamas. “Though visitation increases at our national parks year after year, the Trump administration has proposed a 30% cut to the National Park Service in the fiscal year 2026 budget and a 65% cut to the National Forest Service. These are historic cuts and, as you will hear today, these agencies are already underfunded and understaffed. Republicans have also proposed privatizing millions of acres of public lands throughout the country, including 14 million acres at risk here in Colorado alone.”
National Parks are experiencing record levels of visitation, and recent funding cuts have significantly downsized the Park Service’s workforce and resources.
Claire Naumer, a high school student from Evergreen High School said that maintaining public lands for future generations was a significant issue for her.
“I’m here today at the ‘Public Lands Can’t Run on Crumbs’ Bake Sale because I think everyone here has some kind of fond memory that center around the beautiful outdoors,” Naumer said. “For me, it has been hiking in the national forests. … I found so much joy in simply being surrounded by trees and a gurgling stream.”
“With climate change being one of the biggest current worries of our generation, it is incredibly important for us to feel connected to the planet we’re trying to save,” Naumer continued. “We need people to know what they will be missing if we don’t remain vigilant in our protection of the planet. Everyone should have the chance to grow up outside and experience the natural beauty we’ve been blessed with. Unfortunately, because of environmental, economic, and political factors, many kids in this country may not be able to explore the outdoors. Our public lands can’t run on crumbs and they can’t run without the amazing National Park Service rangers, U.S. Forest Service workers, and other federal employees that help maintain and preserve our lands and keep kids, families, and wildlife safe.”
Elizabeth Vellano is a former National Park ranger whose contract was not renewed after working for the Park Service for six years. Most recently, Vellano worked as a climate change training ranger, helping the Service create materials to integrate climate science into its operations, working with scientists and other land management agencies to create public educational materials.
Vellano said that while visitors may not initially see the parks the visit being understaffed, park workers are struggling with a lack of resources and support.
“Day-to-day operations, they [the administration] are trying to trick visitors into thinking nothing’s wrong,” said Vellano. It’s possible that you’ll go to a park and you’ll think ‘everything’s fine’, but the reality is that person [with the Park Service] you’re talking to is an archeologist who is supposed to be researching archeology who’s forced not to do their job description and instead, interface with the public … the other component of it is that with all of the bullying and intimidation tactics that are forcing people to take things like the deferred resignation program, we’re seeing massive loss of institutional knowledge. People who know so integrally how these parks run, the parks run through their blood and they eat, breathe, live the park for generations, they’re leaving. With that comes a loss of institutional knowledge and generally fewer people there to do the jobs. You’re seeing that people are doing more overtime, bathrooms go uncleaned, that visitor centers are forced to close more often. Honestly, the morale of the rangers in the Park Service has tanked; you can’t just feed the National Park Service crumbs and expect us to run a marathon on it. That’s what they [this administration] are trying to do.”
Vellano emphasized that support for public lands and the park service is relatively bipartisan.
“We’re here today at a bake sale for public lands, we are here because the youth have said, ‘we have seen the danger to public lands and we’re going to fight for them’”, Vellano said. “The youth are doing more than our politicians are doing. We’re here because there is a $267 million cut that has been taken from the National Park Service and they’re proposing to take $1.2 billion more from it.”
“The number one thing that needs to be done is by the average person,” Vellano stated. “The average elects representatives who are supposed to follow our lead, and the average person, no matter if you lean blue or red or independent, loves public lands. We saw it with the public land sell-offs of the BBB [the Big Beautiful Bill that cut funding from the Park Service], we want these places protected, and our politicians are selling out our inheritance. They are leaving the leadership to the kids who are trying to run a bake sale for a $1.2 billion budget deficit. We need to demand that our elected officials listen to us. We have a big fight coming up where they are going to try and take that $1.2 billion away from us and we all need to call our elected officials and say ‘where is your leadership, don’t let them defund the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management, any of these public land agencies that protect these places.”
Vellano said that they wanted to let people know that even acts of kindness, like writing a letter to Park Service employees thanking them for their work, means a lot to people working these jobs.
After the press conference, several of the speakers told the Colorado Times Recorder that they urged people to contact their congressional representative to fight against these cuts.
“We really need our members of Congress to stand up for public lands,” Kuntzler told CTR during the bake sale. “I think Representative Jeff Hurd and Representative Gabe Evans have the power to stand up and fight these cuts to spaces that are especially going to impact, especially Rep. Hurd’s, constituents and the local economies here that depend on outdoor recreation.”
