“The content of the program — the practice of working with a group and having reflection pieces built in — was really helpful,” Brooke says. “Those interpersonal and leadership skills built confidence that served me well later on.” 

While studying natural resources policy at Oregon State  (“Camp will do that to you,” Brooke jokes) , Brooke spent several summers on staff at Camp Sealth. She continued to stay connected and volunteer as she started building her adult life, first as an indoor climbing instructor and then at law school at Gonzaga University. 

Now Associate In-house Counsel at the Building Industry Association of Washington, Brooke says her family connections help her stay close to Camp Fire as an adult. Not only did Brooke meet her wife while they were both working at camp, but Brooke’s sister is currently on staff at Camp Sealth and her mother has served on the council’s board. It’s easy for Brooke to hear about volunteer opportunities from her close network, but she knows there are many alumni who want to be more involved with but don’t have those built-in entryways. For example, no one else from her childhood Camp Fire program stayed active after high school, but she knows they would be excited to be asked to help. 

“When young people age out of Camp Fire programs, they need a simple way to stay engaged,” Brooke says. “From a practical standpoint, we need to be able to stay in touch. That’s hard when you might have 10 different email addresses after high school or not use Facebook groups.” 

When Brooke was invited to join the Alumni Task Force this past year, she jumped at the chance. Over several months, Brooke and other task force members met virtually to brainstorm ways to help alumni connect with each other and the organization. 

“I was looking to share my own story and what might be helpful based on my own personal knowledge,” Brooke says. “It was a really positive experience to engage with like-minded folks who are excited about youth programs and learn what councils are doing across the country.”

Brooke and her teammates sent recommendations back to national headquarters, where the staff has been hard at work implementing them. 

Thanks to the Alumni Task Force, these brand new alumni opportunities are live now: 

• An expanded Alumni Hub where alumni can get the latest alumni news and easily update their contact information.
• An official, Camp Fire-moderated Alumni Facebook Group
• New Facebook profile photo frames (three to choose from)
• An official, Camp Fire-moderated LinkedIn Group
• Additionally, Camp Fire Alumni is now listed as a company on LinkedIn, so alumni can list Camp Fire as part of their experience history and find other alumni easily.
• A new digital Alumni Badge

At the recommendation of the task force, Camp Fire National Headquarters is also working on an alumni toolkit for councils. This toolkit will feature best practices from councils across the country and step-by-step plans on how to engage alumni on a local level.

Brooke is enthusiastic about what increased alumni engagement and consistent connection could do for both alumni and current Camp Fire youth. 

“There’s a mutual benefit there,” Brooke says. “Youth can benefit from mentorship and the visibility piece — seeing different types of folks in all kinds of careers and roles. And alumni volunteers can feel good about how they are spending their time. People need that sense of altruism in their lives, especially during more stressful times.”

The post Alumni Task Force Builds Connections appeared first on Camp Fire.

If you were one of the 10 million people who

Holly Ridings is NASA’s chief flight director, responsible for all of the organization’s human spaceflight operations, including International Space Station missions, the Commercial Crew Program collaborations with SpaceX and Boeing, and Artemis, which aims to return to the moon by 2024…and then on to Mars. 

Holly is the first woman to hold this elite position at NASA. It requires incredible execution, planning, and long-range strategy skills, not to mention endurance. “You’re always mentally tied to the control center,” which Holly describes as her team’s home away from home. “You kind of feel like you live there!” 

The role also demands a unique pairing of technical and social expertise. 

“It’s the crossroads of humans and spaceflight. It’s this amazing technical endeavor, to fly in space, but the other focus of my job is the people,” Holly says. The chief flight director manages NASA’s 32 flight directors, about whom Holly raves. 

“NASA has amazing people,” she says. “They are motivated and excited. They want to be here, and they want to work really hard.” 

“I like to fix things, and I like teams.”

An independent, adventurous kid, Holly grew up fishing and camping with her parents. Camp Fire was an extension of her family’s love of the outdoors and commitment to community service. Her mother was a leader, her father was on the Camp Fire West Texas board, and Holly and her sisters began as Bluebirds. In the summers, Holly went Camp Don Harrington near Amarillo (a Boy Scouts camp her council used for Camp Fire programming) and Camp El Tesoro in the Fort Worth/Dallas area when she was a little older. She had to fly there by herself—a big adventure for a fifth grader! To earn her WoHeLo Award as a teenager, Holly organized a coat drive to provide warmth for people in need during Amarillo’s cold winters. She partnered with a local nonprofit to collect, clean, repair, and give away hundreds of winter coats. 

One of Holly’s strongest Camp Fire memories was attending the end-of-camp council where they revealed a leadership award named after her mom, Myra Ridings, for the first time. “She was so involved and instrumental on the local Camp Fire council.”  

In addition to her family’s strong Camp Fire traditions, the organization’s practical programming drew Holly in. 

“One of the things I loved about Camp Fire was that it was very hands-on,” remembers Holly. “For girls at the time, finding those experiences was a little challenging.”

She sees a connection between Camp Fire’s practicality and her eventual career path. “If you think about the Camp Fire curriculum, there’s a lot of problem-solving,” Holly says. “How do you solve problems as a team? How do you work together?” 

Her role as a flight director also merges the practical with the social. “Those are the two parts of my personality,” Holly reflects. “I like to fix things, and I like teams.” 

“Operations is where the people meet the problem,” she continues. “Engineering is the tool to solve the problem, using people’s smarts and creativity.” 

Putting Camp Fire values to work at NASA

Those two Camp Fire values—creative problem solving and others’-centered thinking—continue to impact Holly’s daily life. First, Camp Fire’s lessons in curiosity help to solve tough challenges today.  

“A program like Camp Fire gives you exposure to so many different things and teaches you to consider all aspects of life,” Holly says. She practices this expansive attitude toward problem-solving at NASA. 

“When I have to solve a problem, sometimes I won’t even talk to space people. I’ll go talk to business people or to my friends in the military,” she explains. “You can ask, ‘What do they have to do with space?’ But getting other viewpoints is a process you learn to solve problems.”  

Second, her family’s service and her Camp Fire projects taught Holly to not only see through others’ eyes but to give others’ needs priority. 

“One of the things that being involved with a program like Camp Fire that has such a strong community service component is that you learn to put others first,” Holly says. “You learn to look at the world in terms of how you can add value, change it for the better, and make a difference for those who could use some help.”

That habit of empathy fuels not only Holly’s work with her team but NASA’s entire mission.

“I believe human spaceflight is a fundamentally positive message to the world,” Holly says. “I hope it resonates with people and gives them some joy.”

The post From Camp Fire to Mission Control: NASA Chief Flight Director Holly Ridings’s Alumni Story appeared first on Camp Fire.

Camp Fire is proud of its legacy and we’re proud of those who have walked before us. Over July, we celebrated our alumni on social media and called for them to share some of their memories. 

Each one of the memories alumni shared deserves the honor it was given. From making foil dinners over a fire to earning highly revered Wohelo Awards, our deep-rooted story created the context for the new stories we’re writing today. 

Camp Fire has grown and stretched and re-imagined ways to serve our mission in bold new ways. Because our alumni had the courage to transform and to imagine a new vision for youth, we’re now living into Our Promise – one that encourages us to live individually-defined lives to their fullest. 

Camp Fire has never been convention–bound. Exploring new ways of living full lives has always been a high value.  Alumni have served the organization as standard-bearers. Alumni have offered their willingness to push aside limiting beliefs while accepting with enthusiasm new definitions of how to live with integrity. It took courage to change. It takes courage to stand behind the changes made.

Love for Camp Fire runs deep. Over the past month, dozens of alumni shared their experiences in Camp Fire. Here is what a few of them had to say:

“In Camp Fire, I learned leadership, creativity, and a love of the mountains.” – Tracey

“Camp Fire is where I learned how to swim, row a boat, and identify a tree by its leaves.” – Dianne

“I learned how to care about the Earth and its inhabitants during my time in Camp Fire.” – Jeannie

“Camp Fire taught me to look for beauty in all, and to never stop learning.” – Rena

Stories continue to be told about camp, songs, traditions, and purpose. Smiles spill over faces remembering canoes, councils, community-serving, and companionship. When alumni gather, hands are held and tears are spilled. Because Camp Fire has always been one of those rare organizations that bind participants together in camaraderie that is only possible through honest, willing discussion of complex, often challenging circumstances.

Today, over 100 years since Camp Fire first took to the woods to canoe and camp, youth across the country continue to have powerful, life-changing experiences. No matter the program, Camp Fire participants experience self-discovery and develop meaningful connections with others and nature.

To our amazing alumni: we applaud you. We are thankful for how you have gone before and shaped Camp Fire, while nurturing our rich legacy and helping us evolve to best serve new generations today.

Wohelo!

We want to hear your Camp Fire stories! Share your memories with us at info@campfire.org.

Don’t forget to stay in touch! Sign up to receive alumni news and updates:

Read more alumni stories:

Award-winning senior swimmer carries Camp Fire torch

>> Read More

Zoe, 13, Reflects On Her First Year at Camp

>> Read More

Dr. Evelyn de Ghetaldi: A Woman of Significance

>> Read More

The post Thank you Camp Fire Alumni appeared first on Camp Fire.

By Cheryl Kravitz

If you are very lucky, there are times you meet a person who will have lasting impact on your life. The encounter might take a few minutes, a few hours, or, if you are fortunate, could last over the course of many years. Dr. Hester Turner is one of those people for me, and, I would guess, thousands of others. She served as Camp Fire’s national Executive Director from 1966 until 1979. This past January she celebrated her 100th birthday.

She lives in an apartment with an outstanding view of the East River, “or it was until they started building,” she quips. The inside of the apartment is filled with memories, images that vie with the sights outside.

There are dozens of photos of her family, awards from organizations across the country, and in a place of prominence in her office, a rendering of her work at Camp Fire, her lovely face at the center.

Her memory is crystal clear. Her reflective eyes tell the story of her triumphs and challenges. She stays in New York, because, as she has said in the past, “I can stick my hand out and get a cab” to plays, operas, ballets and lectures. She is a celebrity in her building, stopped as she goes to the elevator and downstairs to fetch her mail. Everyone smiles when they see her.

Dr. Turner was a force to behold from the time she was a child. Her beloved mother died when she was two. She remembers a terrible flood in San Antonio when she was four years old. “We had 17 inches of rain. When my father insisted we evacuate, I put on my best dress. We shoveled our way out through the basement.”

She credits her father with the resiliency she shows on a daily basis. “From the time I was little, he would always tell me I could be anything I want to be. He knew I could do it.”

At a time when women held back in many ways, Dr. Turner went to law school at the University of Arizona She says she decided to go to law school because a less than competent lawyer had helped her aunt with a probate matter, and she thought, “I can do better.”

In an interview with Arizona Attorney Magazine, she says that her husband was in the Air Force stationed in Tucson, and she was a young mother. Not the easiest of times. She relays it was “very difficult to be a woman in law school, for lots of reasons. The general feeling was that women didn’t belong there.” Turner described feeling like an outsider when she decided to attend a “smoker,” an all-male gathering for law students and professors.

“The men told me they ‘didn’t tell the stories we usually do’ because a woman was there. And if a professor had to decide between giving an A or a B, or a B and a C, “the woman would always get the lower grade because we didn’t belong in law school.” Despite challenges, in 1945 Turner graduated and took the Arizona bar exam. She was the only woman taking it that year, and she was pregnant. She passed it and shortly after moved with her husband, who had been transferred to Portland, Oregon.

Despite her credentials, she couldn’t get a job practicing law and was told she could work “in the back office” because “women don’t belong in the front office.” She passed the Oregon bar exam and practiced law on her own, primarily doing domestic relations work, wills and adoptions.

Dr. Turner also has a Ph.D. in Education, plus three honorary doctorates. She served as Dean of Students at Lewis & Clark University and in 2012 was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Arizona College of Law; only 20 alumni have received this award in the 97-year history of the college. She also served as President of the American Forestry Association.

Well-travelled, the story she tells about her visit to Europe in 1938 is one that that brought chills to my heart. “I had just graduated from college and decided to visit a friend in Vienna. It took a week to go across the Atlantic. I stayed in youth hostels for 25 cents a night. She visited a local beer house when she travelled to Munich. A server came up to me and whispered in my ear. She wanted to know if I could teach her English. I let her know how to get in touch with me.”

Dr. Turner was offered a ride to her friend’s home in Vienna. She did not know the gentleman that asked her, but accepted the transportation. He gave her his card but said that she shouldn’t be seen speaking with the woman who whispered to her because “she is Jewish.” When Dr. Turner arrived at her friend’s home the family was quiet, and remained so until she was ready to leave. She said they brought her to an isolated place far from their home and told her she needed to get out of Germany, and quickly. She did.

She threw out the card from the man who drove her and will not speculate who he was and what role he might have played during those war-torn years. She never heard back from the waitress.

Dr. Turner has four children, two sons, Bill and John, and twin daughters, Mary Lee and Jane. Her daughters are blind and, from the start, she instilled in them the same strength of purpose her father gave to her. “The most important part of a youngster’s life is having an adult take time to talk with them and time to listen to what they say,” a comment resonating with the Sparks program of today’s Camp Fire.

In an article Dr. Turner wrote about her daughters for Good Housekeeping magazine, she said, “When the twins were about eleven, the Camp Fire Girls accepted them as regular members. They joined with the understanding that they would be expected to take part in the same activities as everybody else. On overnight hikes, they would joke with their fellow campers, “What do you mean you’re afraid of the dark? There’s nothing to it!”

They worked enthusiastically to earn their badges and achievement “Torches” and, for the next five years, Camp Fire activities played a very big part in their lives, teaching them not only skills, but—more important—how to get along with all kinds of children.

At Dr. Turner’s birthday party in January, friends, colleagues, and family came from around the country to honor her, including Camp Fire National Headquarter’s current President and CEO Cathy Tisdale. To a person, they all know the importance of Dr. Turner in their own lives.

“I hope I can look back someday, with at least a few great adventures under my belt, and feel that I’ve achieved a small portion of what Hester has. And, even more important, that I am surrounded by a cadre of caring, loving friends and family,” said Tisdale.

Don’t miss the video for Dr. Turner’s 100 birthday party!

The post Celebrating Camp Fire Alumni: Dr. Hester Turner’s 100th appeared first on Camp Fire.

When a book on growth mindset becomes a young man’s go-to college companion — one he shared with his roommate who was struggling with challenging life decisions — it’s clear that tenacity and courage (the cornerstones of a growth mindset) have sunk in, and sunk in deep.

In conversation with Jakob D., a Camp Fire alumni and college senior, he shared how Camp Fire first introduced him to Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

“I learned to never give up, to always keep trying. I never doubted a solution would eventually come to me. And I trusted that though the solution may not be perfect, there’s often perfection in the imperfection,” Jakob articulated.

Jakob has learned what many adults still struggle to master. “I relax in the moment,” he shared. “I find happiness and joy in the simple things. I take pride in my work.”

Jakob recounts his experience as a Camp Fire camp counselor as work he was especially proud of. When the youth he was working with were particularly frustrated, he had them approach the problem without speaking. “Though it took more time, the kids learned that slowing down is actually a good thing. It made them focus. They learned to be more deliberate, using hand signals to communicate between them. And they solved the problem.”

Though Jakob said he would have loved to have taken credit for the idea of adopting silence to work through a group challenge, he deferred to Camp Fire. “I learned the idea from my elders,” he said.

Jakob concludes by circling back to a growth mindset. He is convinced that what he learned from Camp Fire has been the underpinning of living his life with forward momentum.

“I keep trying to learn new skill sets. I don’t get stuck,” Jakob states emphatically. And when he does? He refers back to his book. “It always helps,” he concludes.

Jakob is set to graduate in December 2017 with a major in computer science. We are inspired by Jakob’s story and can’t wait to see where he goes next!

Watch Carol Dweck’s TED TALK on The Power of Believing You Can Improve to see in action what Jakob is putting in action, and why it’s pillar of all of Camp Fire’s programs.

The post Living Life with Forward Momentum: One College Senior’s Key to Success appeared first on Camp Fire.

Take a look at a recent speech by Jessica, a 16-year-old from Camp Fire Central Coast of California, who will receive her Wohelo Award this summer. The four defining components that frame Thrive{ology} are eloquently woven throughout her words—identify personal sparks, adopt a growth mindset, build goal management skills, and reflection.

As Jessica says, “Camp Fire has taught me lessons I would have never known, and Camp Fire has brought me relationships that will last a lifetime. Camp Fire is truly a way of life.”

Jessica Dunn’s Speech at the 2016 Camp Fire Central Coast of California Annual Meeting

(Jessica, 16, will receive her Wohelo Award in the summer of 2016 and is the newest member of Camp Fire’s National Youth Advisory Board.)

“It is said that Camp Fire provides a nurturing, constructive, and fun environment for young people to discover their sparks and adopt a growth mindset, bringing about our own course to healthy habits, community leadership, and connection to nature. And, in turn, Camp Fire youth give back by sharing those skills in their communities. Now I’m going to break that down into simpler terms and apply it directly to my Camp Fire Journey. 

First, it really comes down to relationships. So many people in this room have influenced me and provided guidance and support through the years, and for that I’m forever grateful. Without these relationships, I would have only seen Camp Fire as just an afterschool program. 

Next on my journey came discovery. Truly knowing who you are and who you are meant to be can be one of the hardest things to ever discover, and that’s why some never complete the task. But through Camp Fire’s adopted Thrive{ology} method, I was able to focus in on my core spark: helping others through acts of service and kindling that desire within me. Once I discovered it, I was ready to grow and apply. 

Using community service and my Wohelo project as a base, I began to find myself and highlight my strengths along with my weaknesses. Any of those familiar with the Wohelo Award understand just how hard it is to summarize four years of hard work into a reasonable amount of time for tonight’s short presentation. So I’ll just say this: Each part had a lesson. My project became a guidebook for my life, teaching me how to make choices, how to establish a stable budget, how to plan for my future, how to stay “me” despite the pressures society puts on us, and more and more lessons. 

Personally, one of my favorite parts of my book is two of my action plans: an Anti-Bullying campaign and teaching baking at our very own Camp Tacanneko. I have a spark for helping kids feel informed, loved, and safe. The Anti-Bullying Campaign helped the thriving youth in our community by providing insight into the world of bullying and active prevention methods, along with tools to remind themselves they are not alone. Baking, one of my most passionate hobbies, gave me an opportunity to teach something I love at camp: We had a four-day, one-hour baking class that taught how to be safe in the kitchen, how to make a variety of desserts, and how to bake with our hearts. 

Camp Fire has helped me connect with nature in ways I never thought possible, Camp Fire has taught me lessons I would have never known, and Camp Fire has brought me relationships that will last a lifetime. Camp Fire is truly a way of life.”

-Thanks, Jess

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