By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman
DETROIT – Triangle Foundation, Michigan's statewide anti-hate crime and LGBT advocacy organization, has announced plans to be the first LGBT advocacy organization to host a summer camp for youth.
Camping.OUT, which will run from Aug. 6-11, will be "75 percent good, old-fashioned camp fun and 25 percent good, old-fashioned community activism fun," said Triangle Foundation's Executive Assistant and Camping.OUT Director Greg Varnum.
While LGBT community leaders will be brought in to speak to the campers and workshops will be offered to them, Varnum said that it will be the campers themselves who decide who they want to hear and what they want to learn.
"We're offering them a number of options, with potential activities 'pitched' to the campers each morning," to decide from, said Varnum, who has been involved in summer camps as a camper, camp administrator and camp director for almost 20 years.
And, of course, the campers will have lots of time for swimming, hiking, making friends, and enjoying other traditional summer camp activities.
"It's ground-breaking work for Triangle. They're being very thorough to ensure success, and I think they're doing a great job with it," said Grace McClelland, executive director of the Ruth Ellis Center, which will be sending five campers and one adult staff member to Camping.OUT.
"Greg Varnum has a lot of camp experience; I feel really comfortable sending our young people there."
Varnum said that Triangle has received offers of adult volunteer help from all over the country, and stressed that those eventually chosen to work with the young people will first undergo an extensive application and hiring process.
"We're really fortunate that because of the wide range of people showing an interest we're going to be able to put together a really top-notch group of youth-serving professionals," he said.
Varnum said that Camping.OUT is still seeking volunteers.
"The more people able to volunteer, the better," he said.
And while the camp will have an LGBT focus, Varnum said that the goal of the camp is to help campers become all-around leaders.
"We're working to empower and build their sense of leadership in any issue they want to be involved in," he said.
According to Varnum, while the idea of summer camp has been discussed among LGBT community leaders for some time, the impetus for this year's camp comes from the young people that Triangle has been working with as part of its Youth Initiative Project.
"Part of Triangle's Youth Initiative Project is honoring and respecting the input we're getting from youth," he said. "A lot of the input we're getting is that they want to become more involved in the community, but they want to have dialog about how they can do that, and they don't want to miss out on the opportunity to have fun and build community with other young people. We thought the camp offered a wonderful merger between these two requests."
Triangle isn't the only organization offering a summer camp for LGBT youth in 2006. As reported in BTL, the Ruth Ellis Center has teamed up with the Ann Arbor YMCA to offer a Memorial Day Weekend camp to REC's young people. (See "REC youth to attend camp courtesy the Ann Arbor Y," online at www.pridesource.com)
According to McClelland, "All the T's are crossed, and the I's are dotted," for that camp, at which 30 young people will join five REC volunteers and ten YMCA staff.
According to Varnum, the REC camp and Camping.OUT are the only two summer camps for LGBT and allied youth in Michigan, though there are "a handful" in other U.S. states.
"The general consensus is the more of these types of camps we can have, the better," he said.
Varnum said that Triangle will soon be announcing plans for fundraising for the camp, including sponsoring campers so that no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Jeffrey Montgomery, Triangle's executive director, said, "This camp is an investment in our community's future by nurturing a sense of activism and civic consciousness. People are coming out at younger ages and it's time to provide the youngest in our community with a summer experience that is safe and also empowers them."
