2020, lest we say, “wow!”
It’s been a year full of everything – challenge, triumph, pain, passion, loss, love and an unbreakable tie between action and hope – and it taught us much about ourselves and our inextricable bond to one another.
We’re big in to reflection (and we do this every year), so come along for this wild ride with us, won’t you? We’re counting down the Top 10 in 2020.
From 2020, we celebrate:
(1) Our sister non-profit’s record-breaking goals: hit
For catch up: Give Her Camp is our 501(c)(3) partner, dedicated to offering the life-enhancing Campowerment experience to deserving women. Since 2016, it’s been a labor of love — for and by our community — to fundraise and grant more than 50 scholarships to deserving women.
This year, because of 2019’s fundraising efforts, we shed old skin and grew new wings! We brought on a new Board of Directors (s/o to Mercedes Soler, Katie Sleep, Wendy Berry and Carly Bidner!), who allocated the $20K+ donations YOU made to 21 unbelievable heroes of women, 60% of whom are women of color.
We can’t wait to send the official invites at a time that’s post-pandemic appropriate. (And to all who helped make it happen: thank you.)
(2) Our corporate clients and crazy-amazing campers showing us what community really means
If you learned nothing else from 2020, we’re willing to bet you learned to shift plans, hopefully without too much anxiety or upset. And even more hopefully: with the cooperation and support from those you made them with.
Pre-pandemic, we fancied ourselves a retreat company, and our three corporate clients — Messy Middle Mastermind, #DoBetter Pod and Herb It Forward Foundation — as well as our womxn’s retreat and Fancy Campers, made the changing plans as dreamy as this reality could allow for.
The hundreds of people affected by Campowerment’s need to shift plans embodied community in such a way that we have to believe we’re #bettertogether. (Gratitude doesn’t begin to cover it. We cherish you.)
(3) Finding the Resiliency for Re-Invention
The third week of March, our mom-daughter team had a conversation about WTF would become of 2020. And what they really needed at the time. “We’re a little spiraling from global uncertainty,” we thought. “We need to know we’re not alone,” we added. Lightbulb!
One fateful weekend later, we made a decision to offer Campowerment programming online. You showed up. We kept going. Five months and 200 programs later, we had welcomed over 2,000 people to Campowerment.
We’d been talking about going beyond the campfire and being there for each other year-round since 2015. We never imagined this would be the circumstance! But we did it — we all did — and in October, we had all that we needed to introduce Campowerment.com – and pivoted our business from live and in-person to digital and connected, until the time we can be both!
(and peep all the amazing programs we have coming up).
(4) Looking Inwards for What the World Needs, And Adding An Impact Focus to Campowerment’s Programming
The power of this community is immense, and the impact we can have on the world, together, is even bigger. In June following George Floyd’s murder, we asked the women of color in this community to share their experiences as Black women with the rest of their camp sisters. We offered it in a new format — a “Listening Session,” where connection was formed by holding space for the wisdom of those whose stories need the full mic.
That was perhaps our most powerful program of the whole year, and inspired us to integrate Impact into our pillars of programming and curriculum.
Since then, we’ve hosted intersectional conversations around race and gender, addressed crises like food insecurity and talked through the history of complicity in industries like summer camps.
In 2021, we’re going even bigger. Be there.
(5) Connecting the Dots from Founding Members of Campowerment.com And That Impact We’re All Dreaming Of
In launching Campowerment.com, we created a buy-one-give-one model that had each Founding (Annual) Member unlock an additional membership we’ll be giving in partnership with inspiring organizations that empower underrepresented women and girls. More about how, here.
We’re keeping the giving program open through 12/31, at which point we’ll switch into giving mode and find the right women to meet us here on this transformational playground to learn, connect and grow! Join us in making it happen when you become a Founding Member today!
(6) Learning and Growing with 5 Interns — Our Most Ever
Anne Cleary, Synne Flem, Rachel Pan, Meredith Lakis and Christina Billie – 5 young women who made waves from March to present. These burgeoning marketers and aspiring publicists reminded us and each other what inspired teamwork looks like in the face of change.
Interns: you rock, and we’ve loved teaching you and learning from you. (You may recognize the squad from the Holiday Merch collection)
Thanks for keepin’ us kewl.
(7) Landing a Close-to-Home Story in AARP The Magazine
Our Founder, Tammi Leader Fuller and her daddy Jerry “Jookie” Leader (aka Mr. Grandy) were featured in AARP The Magazine this Fall in a story of reconnection during unsuspecting moments. The almost-92-year-old Jerry even got up to dance for the photoshoot!
(8) Making a Habit of Celebrating Campers’ Wins
We developed a new habit we’re proud of this year, and it comes in the form of Campers in the Wild! We’ve been touting camper accomplishments — like Monique King-Viehland’s appointment to the Biden-Harris transition team, Wendy Ellin and Joanna Kleinman’s new books, AJ Johnson’s health victory with her boyfriend Gregg, Sophie Lavin’s fundraising for Herb It Forward Foundation and s’more!
Still to celebrate: Melody Murray’s TV deal!
(9) Offering a 2-Week Free Trial to Campowerment.com to Women Everywhere
Exactly how it sounds! We recently began offering a 14-day trial run for any womxn – by birth or identity – to get started on Campowerment.com, free.
How? Choose the monthly plan here, check out as though you’re signing up, and give it a go for 14 days.
Our hope is that you fall in love and grow with us (as we will with you) over the course of two weeks at any – or all – of the sessions we offer during that time.
(10) Exhibiting Blind Faith & Implicit Trust in the Universe
Life threw us all just about as steep a curveball as we could ever have imagined this year. The world lost too many too soon. Politics divided us. Fear infiltrated our lives. As a collective, we were brought to our knees. But in the darkest of times, we all got the opportunity to practice surviving — got to see how we show up for ourselves, those we love, our neighbors, the world — in the dark. And we’re receiving a huge gift in a subtle way: the opportunity to have blind faith that all will be well.
That, paired with action that we’re each willing to take in service of what’s important to us (community health, impact, relationship maintenance, embodied allyship, etc)…that can change the course of the rest of our lives.
We feel challenged sometimes. We feel sad sometimes. We feel scared sometimes. But we also realize that we have a choice to trust that what will be for the greatest good CAN be. So we’re grateful for the chance to be with that as we choose our commitments to support that energy as it supports us. Onwards!
