- When a fire, hurricane or tornado rips through a town,
chaos and trauma, usually follow.
This can be incredibly tough for the kids in that community.
As grownups are focused on putting the pieces back together
and they can get lost, you know, in the cracks.
And, there's a lotta trauma there for them.
And my next guest has come up with a super innovative way to
help kids cope after natural disasters,
which makes him a Rad Human.
(upbeat music)
All right everybody, from Project:Camp,
let's welcome, Mikey Latner, give it up.
(audience clapping an cheering)
- Thank you.
- So welcome. Meet Cynthia, meet John.
- Hi.
- Pleasure to meet ya.
- Everybody goes way back to the commercial break.
(laughing)
So give us,
we're all friends now,
so give us the overview of what Project:Camp is.
- Yeah, thank you.
So Project:Camp, we pop up day camp
to support children in their families impacted by disaster.
We're providing a space for kids to be kids,
spaces that are unique for their processing.
And it's also supportive of parents to be able to navigate
emergency services, deal with insurance, go back to work,
or to simply have the time to process
what's going on for themselves.
- Well it's hell. That has to be hell for the parents. Yeah.
- Yeah exactly.
- Yeah, that's cool.
Nobody thinks about the kids.
I've never, whenever I thought about this,
I felt horrible as a human
'cause I was like, oh my God,
you think about all the grownups,
stuff they're going through, but kids, it's a hard,
that's a hard situation to tell them what's happening and
how we're going to cope with it.
It's an amazing thing you're doing.
And you're a lifelong camper, right?
- Yeah, absolutely. My, you know,
my mom was a special education teacher at high school
and so I grew up, you know,
she knew the value of being outside
and with kids all summer.
And so early on, I went to any day, overnight camp I could,
I grew up working a bunch of odd jobs as
like a seasonal staff member.
Actually married, well met and married my wife
while working at summer camp.
- Oh wow. Isn't that a cute little movie.
(audience laughing)
- A hallmark number.
Okay. Okay.
- Yeah. And then I was a camper too, for 10 years,
both back east and out in Northern California.
- That's so cool.
So did, did either of you go to camp, like growing up?
- I actually, yes, I did, in London.
It was like this sort of afterschool thing when there was
holiday time and we would go away to like Devon,
Devon is somewhere outside of the UK, it's cool.
Devon or Brighton, and we would just like stay for the week,
and chill out there
and go and do loads of different activities.
Zip-lining all that stuff.
- I'm such an idiot, but like,
this is a very American thing I'm about to do. But for me,
when Londoners go on vacation,
everything looks like Harry Potter.
Y'all go to camp and magic happens.
It's like the most amazing scene,
everything is elevated.
Anyway.
- I was going to dispute that,
but I would be lying if that's, if I did.
- It is magical. I love that for you.
- Because when I think about it, yeah, it was. Yeah.
- It's just, the setting is wonderful.
- [Erivo] It's pretty cool.
- It's just, where are we in a movie?
That's how I pictured it. Okay.
- [Erivo] It's pretty cool, yeah.
- Did you go to camp?
- I went to basketball camp one week,
but mostly we kind of lived near the woods.
My parents were like, there's your camp. Just go run around.
- It's all out there.
- You remember that?
- Yeah.
- Oh, I lived by the woods too.
And I would just go, you know what, though?
My parents they would let me just roam.
- I know right
- My mom would let me roam,
I'm like, I would never let my kid do that.
- Never.
- So how did you come up with this idea?
- Well, so I was actually working as a camp director
up in Northern California
when hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017.
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- And I was working as part of a nationwide camps network.
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- And so we had a sister camp Greene Family Camp in Texas
that really turned to its community in Houston and said,
how can we be helpful?
And Harvey hit right before labor day, right before schools
were supposed to open.
They ended up being closed for a while,
and so there was a real need for childcare.
And so they put a call out and I flew down
and we pop up this huge day camp.
And for me, you know, someone who comes from the camp space,
it was an eye-opening experience of this value that I
had of being able to be there for kids and create this
really impactful space at a time when kids need it most.
- And it's so innate you from like childhood,
it's so easy for you to do and know
- Totally
what's going to like, you know, pull at them and be fun.
'Cause what are some of the things you do there?
Can you explain, like what are some of the activities?
- Yeah, definitely.
So, you know, we start every day, really
it's about creating that, reestablishing a sense of routine
and it's all rooted in play.
And so we start the day with an opening circle where kids
are, you know, stretching.
We'll do like repeat after me games
really just like warming up.
Kids come kind of nervous,
especially the first day.
Parents and volunteers as well.
And so we're breaking that open and getting them to loosen
up and feel comfortable.
Then throughout the day they're in
age group cabins.
And so they'll go to activities where they're, you know,
making robots or arts and crafts or,
- [Clarkson] That's so cool.
- we've had, we've actually been lucky enough to work with
like University of Nevada, Reno,
or Feather River College who've sent like their soccer
teams or volleyball teams to run sports clinics.
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- [Latner] And so, where we can have that...
- I feel like Cynthia and I would go now.
- I would, I'm into that.
- It's an awesome.
- We're geeks.
- Yeah.
- And we have, someone actually asked me, you know,
the impact of being able to be there with those kids and
we're playing as well.
And so we also expand, you know,
so our camps are trauma informed,
and so we spend time throughout the day,
creating space for kids to be able to process what's going
on. So we have me checks throughout the day, mental,
emotional checks.
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- During the day we'll have a gratitude circle.
We actually have the little gratitoad where kids will pass
it around
- Love it.
- and they'll share what they're thankful for, or something
great that's happened for them throughout the day.
- Yeah.
- And then we end the day really in a closing circle
to really shine a light on all that positivity.
- Aw, that's amazing
(Audience clapping)
- I have a quick question.
'Cause I know that you rely on volunteers quite a bit.
so if people can't get to where you are,
I know that people can obviously
you probably have a site.
Obviously you want to tell everybody about what that is,
where they want to volunteer, whatever,
but is there also a way that people can like send money to
help if they are not near you?
- Yeah, definitely. I mean, for us,
like the community partners is actually the most essential
component of what we do.
And so we've been lucky enough to work with, you know,
a toy shop in Quincy,
The Toy Store that was doing that outreach,
bringing in donations. And so they,
when we came to camp during the Dixie fire, they were like,
come in and take everything that you need.
- Wow.
And so there are all these local avenues where people are
providing support and we're trying to create a space that
can wrap around families.
- Yeah. That's amazing.
Is there like a website everybody can go to?
- Yeah, it's projectcamp.co.
- So joining us now is reporter Brittany Hope from our
Sacramento station partner KCRA3. Give it up.
(audience clapping and cheering)
- What's up? Nice to see you.
I can't hug, but I can do this.
- I like that.
- I can do the awkward bump.
So if y'all want to scoot down a bit,
- Oh yeah.
- you can come sit right here.
Well we're going to play musical chairs.
Come on, Brittany.
- Hi.
- [Clarkson] Hello
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to see you too.
You would know
- Yes
- Being from Sacramento firsthand.
like what these kids, what these families are going.
- It's I mean, it's really incredible what Mikey has done.
So we actually met him at a fire camp where hundreds of
firefighters were just sleeping in tents and they were
fighting the flames, overnight shifts, endlessly.
Many of them have children of their own, from across the
state. So he just came up to our news car and said,
I have a camp for kids.
I don't know how to get the word out.
Is there any way you guys could help us.
Social media posts, something like that.
And my photographer and our satellite operator kinda
looked at each other and we said, okay,
this is our story today.
Let's get some good out there.
So we followed Mikey to the elementary school and that's
where we met the principal.
And the principal had told us, you know,
so many of our students have lost everything
And that's when it hit.
After weeks of being out there covering the flames and just
seeing towns that had been leveled,
talking to a principal whose families are reaching out to
her, kind of saying like, what do I do?
And then Mikey comes along and starts this camp.
And when you lose everything and all you have is your body
that's left.
It just kinda changes everything.
And we've talked to so many people
who have been through that.
Mikey really came to the rescue,
having somewhere to bring the kids for eight hours is just
such a weight when you've lost the house,
you've lost a pet, you've, you're trying to figure out work.
So he did that, at the Dixie fire.
And I know that the camps filled up and the Caldor fires
started flaring up near South Lake Tahoe.
And he said, all right, let's go to South Lake,
and did it there again.
- It's amazing.
- It's so cool.
(audience clapping)
- Well, Mikey doesn't know this,
but we have a mom and her sons on the line from the camp.
- Oh my god, awesome.
- So we want to bring them up right now.
This is Jenna and this is her, these are her boys.
- Oh yeah, Bear and Titan.
- Yeah. Oh you know.
- Yes Bear and Titan.
- [Latner] Yeah, absolutely.
- Yes, yes, yes.
What's up y'all?
Hello.
Oh, I can see you already getting emotional.
Okay. Okay.
So, so can you kind of walk us through like
how this has helped your family when disaster struck?
- It was pretty insane what happened.
We were evacuated in August on what was supposed to be the
first day of school.
So literally having the kids ripped out of their routine,
we were ripped out of our routine.
We didn't even know what the next hour was going to hold.
We had to evacuate two hours away.
It was so traumatic. I mean, you can see there,
the kids were a wreck.
They, they didn't know what to think, how to process.
So when my colleague told us about Project:Camp, I said,
this is perfect.
We get to send them somewhere with other kids that have been
evacuated too, where they are going to be taken care of.
I knew it was going to be safe.
It was just something
we knew that they could be removed from the situation
so we could process what do we do next?
And they came back every day, that was the best day ever.
So for us,
that made our hearts so happy that in all this uncertainty,
they had no idea.
They just thought this was the greatest experience.
(audience clapping)
- So, I gotta be honest with you
with names like Bear and Titan,
I had no concern for you.
Those are amazing names.
I knew y'all were going to make it with those names.
Those are incredible names, mama.
So you had a good time.
- It was really scary when we had to evacuate.
And so camp, it was awesome.
- Thank you Mikey.
- [John] It's so cute.
- You are adorable
I mean, what do you,
what do you all want to say to people like Mikey?
This is one reason why I love doing this show so much,
'cause we, I would never have known about you Mikey,
you know, unless people get the word out, like y'all did.
- Look, man.
I think this past couple of years,
I have a six year old too,
and I just think it's been so hard on the kids
that we don't know.
- [Clarkson] Emotionally.
- I mean, as adults we're like,
how do we get through some of this stuff?
So I just think it's beautiful then,
when you put kids in their natural habitat and let them
have fun, I mean, there's nothing better than that.
- [Clarkson] Especially kids going through the same thing,
- Yeah.
- [Clarkson] That's brilliant.
(audience clapping)
So Mikey what's your long-term goal for Project:Camp.
- Our goal is to do this nationally. This year,
we were at two of the biggest fires for the year in states,
in the state's history, the Dixie and the Caldor fires.
We provided, you know,
over 2,600 hours of free meaningful childcare.
And so we've been really focused this year
on wildfires in California,
but we've already started working with other Western states
in response to wildfire with Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Oklahoma, around hurricanes, tropical storms,
and so our goal now is to build
more relationships with communities
so we can be there for kids that are experiencing this.
- That's amazing.
And I know that you said a lot of it is mainly the community
and volunteers and coming together,
- [Latner] Mhm.
- but on your site,
is there a way that people can, if you're nowhere near it,
let's say they want to help, to give money,
to help provide supplies or anything like that.
- Yeah, definitely.
The vast majority of our work really is people,
it's people power.
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- And so there's space on our website
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- to donate a projectcamp.co. And
- I just mean, I know a lot of people that will
see these and they go,
oh my God, I want to help these people,
but they have their own families and their own jobs,
they can't can take vacation or they can't do something,
and those people would want to help too, you know.
But the bodies, that's the,
I think that's the biggest thing you're saying though,
the community actually standing up for each other and
helping each other out.
That's a beautiful thing.
- Yeah.
All right.
Well, we love everything that Mikey is doing
and we want to see project camp grow.
The Dick's Sporting Goods foundation believes
sports make people better
Especially learning, you know, just work as a teammate.
That's beautiful.
Their sports matter program wants to help you continue to
bring great activities to those who need it most.
So they're donating $10,000
- Wow.
- [Clarkson] to Project:Camp.
- [John] Wow, nice.
- [Clarkson] Yeah.
- Thank you.