26/09/2024
Back to boat projects in chilly Melb with 🐶Zia supervising, but I’m still dreaming of my time at Camp Happy Trails for Kids last month in Cali 🥹🏕️🥾☀️💕
I feel so lucky to have experienced a week as a volunteer at their life-changing outdoor camp for foster kids. I cannot say enough about how worthy this organization is — truly doing the most high-impact work by bringing FUN and SMILES and POSITIVE outdoor experiences year round to these young people!!! 😃 The connections I watched the kids make with each other at camp absolutely blew me away, and the number of staff who take leave from their “day jobs” to go work tirelessly at the camp to provide a memorable experience… I can’t even express the level of skill and love I saw them apply!! 🥹🥰 So many of them also have care experience, or even attended the camp when they were in care, and are now doing incredible things themselves. 💪 I left so inspired by you.
Having been through some really rough times during my years in care, I can see how absolutely transformative an experience like Camp Happy Trails would have been for me. I know that nature has been, and always will be, the great healer in my life… and it can be for these kids, too.
I hope more folks will help Happy Trails deliver their healing and life changing programs to these kids. Please consider making a donation now to help them give this gift of connection and camp.
On a personal note, every time I meet people doing this kind of work, it heals some part of me that lingers from my time in care. Youth workers, homeless workers, camp counselors, social workers, and the people that really show up for the care-experienced — I am in awe of you. Thank you for what you do. 💕🥹😇 You deserve all the tautoko and funding we can give! 🙏
