06/17/2026
We are extremely honored to introduce our June Alumni Spotlight , Emilie Joe Brandt.
Emilie Joe Brandt is from Atlanta, GA, and spent every summer at Camp Riva Lake from age seven to sixteen. At CRL, her favorite activities were swimming, canoeing, and horseback riding.
Today, Emilie Joe is pursuing a career in International Relations and, over the past five years, has lived, studied, and worked in seven countries: the United States, Ireland, Spain, Czechia, Poland, the Netherlands, and now Moldova, where she serves as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
She currently lives in a small town on the border with Romania, supporting community and organizational development. She collaborates with her local partner, a youth center director, to strengthen youth-centered services and increase organizational capacity. She also works with the local city hall on community development initiatives focused on understanding community needs and developing strategies to address them.
“Camp helped teach me to be independent from a young age, and that sense of confidence in my ability to build a life outside of my comfort zone has helped me tremendously over the past few years as I’ve moved around Europe,” she shares.
From summers in Wi******er to community development work in Eastern Europe, her journey is a reminder that the lessons learned at camp stay with campers long after the summer ends.
