On April 3rd, 2017, Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced that President Donald Trump had begun to fulfill his promise of donating his presidential salary. During the day's press briefing, Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the Interior, and H. Tyrone Brandyburg, Superintendent of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park accepted a check from President Trump in the amount of $78,333.00

According to Spicer, this check represents all presidential salary received since January 20th, 2017 (pre-taxes), and was donated with the intention of assisting the National Park Service.

The POTUS intends to select a U.S. government entity each quarter as the recipient of donated salary.

What is the Department of the Interior?

Fondly dubbed the Department of Everything Else, this entity was officially created on March 3rd, 1849, sixty years after the creation of the Department of State, the Department of War, and the Department of the Treasury. The United States needed a group who would solely focus on domestic issues rather than the activities that were occurring beyond America's borders.

Today's Department of the Interior lists five priorities: American energy, climate change, stewardship, regulatory reform, and tribal nations. It has ten distinct bureaus -- including the National Park Service.

The role of the National Park Service

The National Park Service (NPS) was formed in 1916 during President Woodrow Wilson's presidential term and currently employs more than 22,000 people today. The NPS system covers 84 million acres throughout all fifty states, and they counted nearly 331 million visitors plus involved 340,00 volunteers in 2016.

President Trump's first quarter donation will be used to assist with the cost of NPS battlefield deferred maintenance. According to Secretary Zinke, NPS is 229 million behind in this area. Though the nearly $79,000 salary donation on the part of the POTUS is a mere drop in a very deep bucket, it is always the first step in fund raising that is the most difficult to start.
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