Camp Odyssey youth
Equity Foundation provided a grant to Camp Odyssey to empower Oregon teens to become ambassadors for social justice, leadership, and civic engagement in their communities. Here’s how our grant helped 15 year old Sam:
As I was approaching the middle of the year and my 11th year of life, I found myself in a special ed class with kids who could easily kick the crap out of me — like every other year since first grade. But when I started the year I had no idea that it would change the rest of my life forever. Well, back to the middle of the 6th grade, I always had this feeling like school was more than just an obligation (it was hell). The way some kids would walk down the hallway like they ruled made me wonder why I was with people who are mean to people who might walk, talk or look slightly different, like me. My teacher told me in early November that if I worked really hard I could try to take the test to get out of the class around Christmas time.
As Christmas/Hanukah time approached I asked her when I could schedule a time to take the test. She looked deep into my eyes and told me that I would never get out of special ed, and that’s when depression struck my 5 foot, skinny body. Somehow I made it through to the middle of 8th grade, and almost made it to the end of middle school. But all the feelings were shoved deeper and deeper down into my body that decided to blossom into a non-sleeping, hurt, broken kid. I didn’t sleep for more than two hours a night for 4 months and started to improve during the summer. As my summer went on, my mother told me about a camp that needed more kids to come to camp. I said no, of course. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a summer camp with a whole bunch of preppy kids. But apparently that was the perfect thing to do for a kid who trusted no one at the time. So I ended up going and learned that it was more than just a summer camp, to say the least.
Camp Odyssey benefited me in so many ways but mostly it showed me how much I needed people in my life which helped me so much to know that I had support no matter what entering high school. Also I gained a male mentor that I will never forget, my man Mohammed (a.k.a. Momo). Staff like Momo helped me because he sees me as a normal person and not someone that’s trans or has physical differences! Camp Odyssey also changed me because I saw stuff in myself that was not right also. I changed the way I said, acted, And saw things in my head. I noticed that I became stronger as a person and started advocating for myself more when I started high school.
Thank you for writing and sharing your story. The sentence about your mentor brought tears of happiness to my eyes. Bless you for getting to where you are now… and being willing to try out the camp that ended up being full of so much healing. Those of us who are able to find our way from being “non-sleeping, hurt, broken kids” and make contact with caring,healing, wise people…well….thank goodness we make those connections. Some of us do not. You are a blessing:)
Thanks Sara for hearing Sam’s Story! This is Linh Ngo and I am one of the alumni that revived this amazing program for teens like Sam. This story has been very important to Sam, by the way
So I will tell him to look at your comment.
Also, please know that our camp is FREE to ALL TEENS that participate because we are truly committed to social justiced and breaking down barriers to leadership opportunities such as ours. So, we soooooo appreciate the Equity Foundation for having our back! In some ways, we are a young organization and the support is invaluable to us to grow and to ensure we are sustainable so we can make a lasting impact for Oregon youth.