“Col. Ned Edward Felder was serving in Vietnam when he was surprised by a care package from a stranger. It wasn’t the contents that touched him; it was the idea that someone had taken the trouble to send it. Alone in the midst of a war thousands of miles from his own home and family, the kindness felt enormous.

Kristina Olson, a shy 12-year-old girl who had knocked on neighbors’ doors in Michigan to ask for donations to send to soldiers as part of a Camp Fire group, was just as surprised, and delighted, when she saw that a stranger had taken the time to write a thank-you note for the gift.

So, she wrote back.

And thus, in 1967, began an unlikely friendship, an exchange of letters that spanned years, continents, and deep cultural divides.”

Read the full article at WashintonPost.com

The post Alumni Story: A soldier in Vietnam and a girl wrote letters. Decades later, they finally met. appeared first on Camp Fire.

Happy Alumni Month! Gather ‘round the crackling fire with us…watch the flames dance as the smell of smoke and crisp night air billows up into a starry sky. Snuggle up in a fleece blanket, perhaps the warmth of a hot chocolate or a ‘smore kisses your tongue, and in between bites or sips, you laugh and joke with your friends sitting nearby. Do you remember these moments? The glow of the fire brought you together, and it’s a place where connection and story is sparked.

Every July we celebrate our alumni and share your stories, but this year we also wanted to explain why. Storytelling is part of Camp Fire’s DNA, whether it’s around a literal campfire, as a teaching tool during a program, or connecting with you all online. We’ll dive into the reasons storytelling is an essential part of our community’s past, present, and future below, but first…

Who are Camp Fire alumni? 

We use a wide definition of alumni at Camp Fire. Have you ever attended a Camp Fire program? Gone to a Camp Fire camp? Have you been a Camp Fire volunteer? Have you worked or volunteered for Camp Fire’s national headquarters or any of our affiliates around the country? Have you sat on a Camp Fire board? Sponsored a Camp Fire event or program? Partnered with Camp Fire to help connect young people to the outdoors, others, and themselves in any way? 

Then congrats, my friend, you are part of our Camp Fire alumni family. 

Why do alumni stories matter?

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion. 

Stories are the way we make sense of our world. When we tell stories, we are making meaning. When we share our stories, we are helping others understand who we are and what matters to us. Stories help us order the random senses, facts, and fragments around us. Without them, we’ve got a whole lot of chaos and no clear path forward.

“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend, or not.” – Isabel Allende

When we place ourselves in the context of a story—this is how things started, this is what changed, this is what is happening now, this is where we’re headed, and this is my best guess at what it all means—we give ourselves a rough life map to follow. 

The act of storytelling also reminds us we are active participants in the stories we’re living. We get to change the narrative any time we want. We also get to decide what the story means. These stories aren’t happening to us—We are the story, and we are the storytellers! 

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.” – Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

When we tell stories collectively, we create culture. You could say Camp Fire’s culture is the sum total of the stories of all of our alumni and current Camp Fire participants. To understand who we are, we need all of your stories! We need the good ones, the sad ones, the triumphant ones, the still-trying ones, the ones with happy endings, the ones that are still in progress. All of them. 

“Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis.” – Rebecca Solnit

We’ve said it before, and we’ll keep saying it: Growing up is hard. Young people today are facing severe environmental and mental health challenges. Sharing stories can help us both understand those challenges better and work our way toward possible solutions. When we share stories, we’re also sharing hope. Alumni stories can be a powerful way of empathizing with the difficulties today’s kids face while highlighting how past generations have overcome their own challenges.

How can alumni share their Camp Fire stories? 

We want to hear more of your stories. We need everyone’s voice to create a strong Camp Fire culture—and to light the way forward. Here are three ways to share: 

• Email us with a story or two. Write it, record an audio file or do a quick phone video. Draw a cartoon, send a photo. Any format works! info@campfire.org
  • You can also join our Alumni newsletter to get alumni stories and updates in your inbox. 

• Share a story in our social media comments or DMs. We’re on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
  • You can also join our Facebook Alumni Group (now 1,400+ strong!) and/or LinkedIn Alumni Group to keep the story-sharing going. 

• Leave us a voicemail message. Take a few minutes to call and record your alumni story. It’s easy! 816-371-7945

Give me some story ideas!

Sure thing! Here are a few story starters to get you going: 

• What is something you learned about yourself through Camp Fire? 
• What Camp Fire memory makes you laugh out loud? 
• How would you be different without Camp Fire in your life? 
• Tell us about a friend you made through Camp Fire.
• What Camp Fire lesson are you still learning? 
• What challenges did you face as a young person (or are you currently facing)? 
• When you think of the Camp Fire of the future, what do you imagine? 

And here are some stories we’ve shared on the blog. Just remember your story can come in other forms. It doesn’t have to be blog post-style!

• From Camp Fire to Mission Control: NASA Chief Flight Director Holly Ridings’s Alumni Story
• Camp Fire Alumni Keep Camp History Alive: The Ojiketa Preservation Society tells the story of their beloved Twin Cities region camp. 
• From Lonely Kid to Lifelong Friends: Camp Fire historian Lorrie Scott’s alumni story
• Who Influenced You Along the Way by Pamme Boutselis, Camp Fire alumni, on how her Camp Fire leader Mrs. Bunney made a big impact on her life.  
• Ilse Browner: A Woman of Tolerance: A WWII refugee’s experiences with Camp Fire
• Risk, Leadership & Resilience: Melanie Herman’s Camp Fire story
• Award-winning senior swimmer carries Camp Fire torch: Maurine Kornfeld, U.S. Masters Swimming Hall of Famer & Camp Fire alum
• Celebrating You: A collection of brief alumni thoughts and microstories 

The post Gather ‘round the Camp Fire: It’s story time appeared first on Camp Fire.

Rosemary has been officially identified as the recipient of this year’s Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award. This award is presented by the National Youth Leadership Council to honor Rosemary for her effects on the positive futures of young people in the field of national service and service-learning.

From NYLC:

This award honors exemplary leaders who have inspired the

service-learning field, positively impacting the lives of young people, and

motivating others to take up the banner of service. Dickson worked with young

people in his native England and abroad and founded Overseas Voluntary Service

and Community Service Volunteers which have — in turn — inspired service

programs worldwide.

Her award will be presented on Tuesday, April 4th, 2023, in Nashville, TN as part of the 2023 National Service-Learning Conference.

About Rosemary:

Rosemary has been in Camp Fire since she was a child.  Her mom, grandmother, children, and now her grandchildren are all part of the Camp Fire family.  In Camp Fire she learned through their motto–“Give Service” the meaning of intentional service and how to make it a part of who you are.   She took those skills and to this day has been a woman of service. 

Rosemary has served as a Servant Leader for over 30 years. During that time she has mentored youth and adults in the area of Service Learning providing them with opportunities to excel. She has inspired young people to become people of service providing opportunities for service in multiple communities on the east coast. Many of these young people have become leaders at the national level impacting a broad range of agencies and programs. Her work with adults has included university interns, agency and school professionals, and parents.

She has led youth programs in driving safety, public health, and bridging the achievement gap through student-led service projects, some of which have received national recognition. She has encouraged youth living in homeless programs to serve and engaged them in national service projects which allowed them to lead. In the Latino community, she worked alongside partners to create public health responses to Covid. Through university programs, she engaged university interns in creating service learning projects that both supported their learning but also modeled service learning for K-12 youth. 

She leads by example and takes others on a journey of service that has a lifelong impact. Many of the youth she mentored attribute their love of service to her love and support.

To Rosemary, thank you for your dedication and congratulations!

The post Camp Fire Patuxent CEO Rosemary Pezzuto Recipient of the National Youth Leadership Council’s Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award appeared first on Camp Fire.

Dr. Faith W LaVelle (March 14th, 1921 – December 14th, 2022)

Of her many achievements, Dr. LaVelle served in many roles with Camp Fire. A post by Providence Life Services honors Dr. LaVelle’s many years of educational service; an excerpt from it states, “For Camp Fire she led two groups of girls from first grade through high school, worked with the local council board, and then served 14 years on the national board, with two of those years as National President (1978-79).” She is also listed as one of Camp Fire’s legacy donors, for which we cannot thank her enough.

Dr. LaVelle’s impact left vivid memories with current staff; one of whom described her as “…truly a very warm and gracious person.” Read her obituary here.

Grace Sidell Nause (July 27th, 1934 – December 12th, 2022)

Grace became involved with Camp Fire in 1972, when her daughter joined the program. Shortly after, Grace became the executive director for Camp Fire Sandusky County in Fremont, OH, and served from 1975-2002. Her Camp Fire legacy prevails through her grandson, Jason Sidell, who currently serves as treasurer on the board of directors at the very same location.

Grace’s obituary can be found here.

A beautiful wish from Grace can be read in her Obituary, which tells us that “Life is good” and “Don’t cry because I’m gone – Smile because I was here”.

We thank these two outstanding women for their incredible dedication to our mission, and we send our utmost gratitude to the people that supported them.

Their memory shall live on forever in the heart of Camp Fire.

The post In Memorium: Celebrating the lives of Dr. Faith W LaVelle and Grace Sidell Nause appeared first on Camp Fire.

As her home camp Camp Sealth celebrates its 100th year, alumnus Lorrie Scott is looking back over her own six decades of dedication to Camp Fire. Lorrie has filled practically every role available to Camp Fire devotees: childhood member, adult leader, council board member, volunteer, staff member, conference instructor, and more. And she’s carved out a special niche as the volunteer coordinator of Camp Fire Central Puget Sound’s museum archives.

In the 1970s, some of the council’s older volunteers had started to organize, code and classify the council’s many boxes of photographs and historical materials. One volunteer invited Lorrie to see their progress. “I went in there, and I was hooked!” Lorrie says. “I was 35, so they used me to lift all the heavy boxes. I wanted to see everything, touch everything!” She joined their efforts and never looked back.

Now, Lorrie heads a committee of about a dozen other local Camp Fire history buffs. Right now, they don’t have a permanent home for exhibits, but they can bring mobile displays to events and different council locations. The historical archives live at Camp Sealth. Three years ago, they received a grant that helped them buy archival storage boxes to better preserve items like ceremonial gowns. Lorrie’s team is now cataloguing, digitizing and attempting to identify thousands of photographs.

Want to help Camp Fire Central Puget Sound put names to faces in their museum archive materials? Contact Lorrie: lorrieann123@gmail.com

Lorrie knows that every photograph holds stories of how Camp Fire has changed the lives of its members. Her own Camp Fire tale? It’s all about belonging. 

Lorrie’s early school days were lonely. She missed part of her kindergarten year due to severe illness. For first grade, her overcrowded district bussed her to another school, where she didn’t know anyone. Late in the school year, a Camp Fire leader came to the class to hand out brochures. 

“There was a picture of a lonely, sad little girl,” remembers Lorrie. “I thought, that’s me!” The brochure also showed a group of happy girls in Camp Fire uniforms. Lorrie wanted that kind of friendship.

She took the brochure home, her mother filled it out, and, just like that, Lorrie found her place.

The next year was filled with Camp Fire activities: group meetings, tea parties, quilt-making sessions, crafting cradles for Christmas gifts. 

“I still have that brochure,” says Lorrie.

By third grade, Lorrie’s mother had become her Camp Fire group’s leader, and Lorrie continued to expand her Camp Fire involvement. By high school, she was in one of Seattle-King County’s many Horizons Clubs, with thousands of members in clubs spread out over multiple districts. One year, the high school officers chose Vietnam as the focus for their service work. They found out about a Seattle native, Dr. Patricia Smith, who needed bandages for the hospital she started in the Kontum region of Vietnam. 

“We went and got sheets, everywhere we could find sheets, took the seams out, cut them in 2 or 3-inch wide strips, rolled them into bandages really tightly, and fit them into coffee cans,” Lorrie remembers. “And we sent thousands of these to Vietnam. [Dr. Smith] needed them, and she kept asking for more.”    

Lorrie says this project made her more aware of the war she saw playing out on the nightly news. Camp Fire service projects kick-started her lifelong commitment to helping others. “If there is a volunteer need, I do it,” says Lorrie, who has given her time to the Goodwill Games, Bikes 4 Humanity and as a docent for a local lighthouse. 

Another way Camp Fire altered the trajectory of her life was the nudge it gave her to continue her education. Lorrie was determined to become a camp counselor after high school. At that time, there was a requirement that counselors had to have a year of college under their belts. But college wasn’t an expectation in her family. Neither of her parents and none of her relatives had gone to college, and many hadn’t finished high school, either.

“I was not going to miss being a camp counselor!” says Lorrie. “I knew I was going to college from the time I was in sixth grade.”

So Lorrie majored in recreation and spent her summers working at Camp Fire camps in Washington and Ohio, where she had visited during a camp exchange program in high school. In her adult life, Camp Fire continued to claim a large part of her time and heart. She’s done everything from running day camps to teaching self-reliance classes. She took on leadership roles and pitched in where necessary. She’s been in both paid and volunteer positions. “At that point, I didn’t really care, as long as I was involved!” Lorrie says. “Whatever came up, I’d give it a try.”

Now she hopes to pass on Camp Fire values to her grandchildren, two of whom are in the group Lorrie leads now. Lorrie knows the experiences they have now will have a big impact on their futures. After all, the friends she made in Camp Fire group are still her friends today; they stay in touch on Facebook and with regular meet-ups. 

“Even though group programs were our strength and backbone, those of us who stayed really, really close met at camp,” Lorrie says. “We still get together three or four times a year, sing our songs around the campfire and remember those we’ve lost.

I just think: Wow. I’m part of this group of people who have lasted together over 50 years!” 

The post From lonely kid to lifelong friends: One Camp Fire alum/historian’s story appeared first on Camp Fire.

Born in 1921 in Great Falls, Montana, Maurine learned to swim as a child but didn’t take up the sport seriously until she was in her 60s. A chance encounter with a masters swim team at a YMCA piqued her curiosity, and before she knew it, she was winning age-group medals at meets. She never looked back. She’s logged more than 1,000 official swims and currently holds 32 records. 

Above and beyond her athletic achievements, the Camp Fire alumna is known for her work ethic (she drives to the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center every day to practice), her jovial spirit (her teammates rave about how “Mighty Mo” holds court after workouts in the hot tub), and her life-long commitment to service. 

Maurine says that heart for helping others started with Camp Fire. 

Maurine was part of a Depression-era Bluebird club that met every Tuesday afternoon. They would wear their uniforms (navy blue skirts and white tops with ties) to school, so they were ready for the after-school club, lead by one of the high school teachers. They learned how to handcraft and sew and sang Camp Fire songs. They practiced target shooting with rifles, but Maurine opted out of that activity. (“Even in the Wild West!” she laughs.) She remembers one project in particular, where they made clothing for a local family in need.

“That was an integral part of Camp Fire—the idea of service,” Maurine says. “I suppose that stuck with me. I became a social worker!” 

When she was 10, Maurine graduated into the Camp Fire Girls and eventually earned her Torch Bearer award. (Similar to today’s Wohelo Award.) She still has the Torch Bearer candlestick, made from local Montana copper, displayed proudly in her Los Angeles home. 

She spent several years serving as a Camp Fire Girls Guardian in Great Falls before taking the leadership skills she learned into the wider world. Maurine studied at the University of Chicago, where she earned her master’s degree insocial work, and then moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for the LA school district, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Today—in addition to smashing swimming records—she serves as a docent at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And she can still be heard breaking into a Camp Fire song every now and then.  

“I have a warm place in my heart for Camp Fire,” Maurine says. “It was a very important character-building activity.”

Maurine is just one of thousands of Camp Fire alumni inspiring others by sharing their sparks. Some have reached celebrity status (from Shirley Temple to Madonna). Some are even running for president (Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar). Even more are quietly making a difference in their cities and neighborhoods…and we want to hear about them!

Who is your Maurine Kornfeld? 

Comment here or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. 

We want to hear your stories about alumni who are living Camp Fire values out loud! 

The post Award-winning senior swimmer carries Camp Fire torch appeared first on Camp Fire.

This month is Alumni Celebration Month at Camp Fire! If you’re an alumni, please sign up for our ALUMNI EMAIL LIST so we can stay in touch. Thanks for your support!

The post Celebrating You, Extraordinary Camp Fire Alumni appeared first on Camp Fire.

Ilse (Hochhauser) Browner’s family left Austria the morning after the Germans annexed her country. She was one of the fortunate.  All borders were closed the day Ilse and her family left everything and drove from their home, so they abandoned their car and hopped on the first train heading west.  After arriving in Switzerland, they were told by the Swiss they couldn’t stay. Instead of taking a return train, Ilse’s father arranged for a charter plane to England, the only European country willing to accept the family.  From England they eventually boarded a ship to America. Ilse arrived in New York when she was 13, where she joined Camp Fire.

At Camp Fire Camp Talualack in Bear Mountain, New York, Ilse had an experience that clearly illustrated the conflict she escaped.  Campers were divided into two teams, the green and yellow team. Ilse explained that almost immediately fierce loyalty to their team superseded any other relationship that might have been established.  “We each have a human need to be loyal,” Isle clarified, “And we need somewhere to place it.

 If there are not positive outlets, negative forces such as gangs will fill in the holes. Loyalty and tolerance of others need to walk together.”

Isle believes that respect for others—at the core of Camp Fire—is the foundation to growing from a self-oriented kid to a mature, productive and respectful member of our larger society.  Respect for a common good and shared goal is what binds us together, she says.

Isle’s personal perspective on tolerance was shaped by being face to face with a youth heiling Hitler as he held her passport in his hands, more than 80 years ago.  Her admonition that we must teach our youth respect, responsibility and character carries a deeper sense of gravitas than those of us who never knew the horrors of losing friends and family in Hitler’s Germany.

“Instead of looking inward,” Isle reflects, “we need to look out. We need to learn more about setting good examples our children can model.”

This month is Alumni Celebration Month at Camp Fire! If you’re an alumni, please sign up for our ALUMNI EMAIL LIST so we can stay in touch. Thanks for your support! 

The post Ilse Browner: A Woman of Tolerance appeared first on Camp Fire.