Project:Camp's Growing Capacity
As we head into the second half of the year at Project:Camp, we’re feeling ready to take on whatever challenges lie ahead.
Heading into fire and hurricane seasons, we’re confident that our work over the past six months has put us in a great spot to be successful in responding to any disaster in the U.S. We’ve spent a lot of time preparing communities through our community organizing program, and connecting with other camp, disaster response, and emergency management professionals at conferences and meetups to help make the needs of children and families a priority during emergency situations.
Our biggest area of growth has been in our overall capacity. As we continue to try and meet the needs of every child impacted by climate-driven disasters, we’ve expanded our team so that we can be more places more frequently – and cover the costs associated with running camps and organizing communities across the country.
In service of that, we brought on Kristall Laursen as our Development Manager in May and she has hit the ground running. Kristall has a deep passion for environmental justice, after spending her career fundraising for organizations like the John G. Shedd Aquarium, Global Greengrants Fund, and Project Drawdown. At Project:Camp, she will be working with funders and champions to raise support for our pop-up camps and disaster preparedness work. If you are interested in discussing a gift or other opportunities to benefit Project:Camp, please send her an email at kristall@projectcamp.co!
We’ve also spent the Winter and Spring months revamping and expanding our camps program. We plan to have even more intentional activities to ensure children impacted by disasters receive the best possible experience, and we’ve hired more seasonal camp directors to help run camps, bringing on some familiar faces, as well as some new ones.
In addition to our stalwart, Nathaniel Meier, who’s been elevated to a role as our Lead Seasonal Director, we’ve brought on four others to the roster. Joining Than for the summer months, we have Mark Andreoni (often referred to by his camp nom de guerre “Newt”), who comes to us with many years experience as a camp director and who is currently working on his masters in social work at University of Washington. When Mark heads back to finish up his masters program in September, we’re bringing on three more seasoned directors to help with camps in the fall: Brooks McCall of Tumbleweed Day Camp in Los Angeles; Madeline McClelland of Mountain Camp near Tahoe; and Jacqui Howe of Catalina Sea Camp on Catalina Island. Brooks and Madeline were part of our response to Hurricane Ian in Florida last fall, while Jacqui is a new recruit to the Project:Camp team.
While we’re very excited about our growing team and the capacity it represents, we’re cognizant that we must remain vigilant and continue to support the needs of children and families impacted by disasters diligently. We feel that the steps taken to prepare ourselves in the beginning months of this year will help us do just that.
With gratitude,
Mikey
We’re not done growing the team! As our community preparedness work continues to expand, we’re looking to hire another person to help with that work in California. If you know someone – or are interested yourself! – head on over to the Project:Camp jobs page for more information about the position.
As we move into our response season, we’re also looking for more people to sign up to help out as volunteer counselors at camps that might be running in your area. If you or others you know are interested, you can fill out a volunteer interest form and we’ll be in touch about a training in the near future!
A big shoutout to all the conferences who let us present this Spring! We gave talks at the California Emergency Services Association Conference in May to a packed house, and held both a panel discussion and camp director recruitment session at the American Camp Association Southern California and Hawaii Spring Leadership Conference. Thanks for having us!
