Shifting Perspectives
Reflect, Reframe, and Manifest
“My school died,” said a sweet, introspective five year old boy. It was his free play time, and instead of playing on the structure like most of the others. He sat next to me, on a bench, not playing, deep in thought.
“I miss the chickens.”
He was referring to Aveson, a magical, unique school, located in the foothills of Altadena, with a natural, beautiful view of the mountains, a charter school with an empowering curriculum including student-led, meaningful, social justice passion projects starting in Kindergarten.
A place where chickens roamed and art took place in a yurt, where there was a garden for all things (a playful place, a learning space, and a farm-to-table future) and a Secret Garden (a place where dreams happened). As well as a kitchen staff that danced and laughed and put love and healthy living in every morsel. Where PE classrooms took hikes to waterfalls weekly.
Where there was a Free to be Me mentality.
Students seen and heard and listened to.
This was where our Peace Camp was born.
A decade of memories. Lost in Ashes.
This year we mourned…the homes of so many loved ones.
We pondered…was this the end of Peace Camp? We paused…
Then we heard the stories and felt the call.
Even if we only have a positive impact on one child…
A teen boy, loving, humorous, athletic…asks us if Peace Camp will continue. He tells his friend that it is his favorite time of year. He mourns the loss of some of his favorite shirts, the rainbows of colorful Peace Camp shirts, which burned, along with his home, in the fire.
Yes…Let’s do it. For him. And for us. For all of us, it was a year of fear, of loss, of failure…of trauma, in so many ways.
Oasis Trilingual Community School in Monrovia graciously opened its doors to us and offered a space. (Fun fact: Years ago, when I passed this school, I received a strong signal to knock on the door and inquire whether they would host a Peace Camp!)
We only had a little over a month to prepare and market camp. We were not sure we would be able to get campers and we were determined to offer camp free to those impacted by the fires. We decided that we would volunteer our time, if needed. And, if we only had ten campers, so be it.
We needed camp, too. A renewal, a Retreat, a Reminder. Together, in trauma and loss. Our camp is a family endeavor. My mother, sister, and I are the directors. My sons, now 17 and 19 help lead the camp. All of us had been through quite a challenging and traumatizing year, and we needed a muse of some kind to empower us.
And our muse came!
A bit of backstory. In 2013, after we dreamt of starting a camp, my mother, my two boys and I, along with two of one of our cofounders' children, drove to Orange County Peace Camp, our Parent Camp, to learn from them.
One of those children was Ella, who would become our very first Peace Camp leader, and a natural, beautiful Peace Maker. Ella was one of our 24 original 5th grade youth leaders in 2014, an incredibly strong group of uniquely talented youth, (raised by the empowering community that was Aveson). She helped dream up our magical camp.
Starting a camp is no easy task and those young children worked incredibly hard. After months of leadership training, they literally helped lead that first camp, and most of them were in 5th grade. At the end of the week, after a grueling, exhausting, five full days, Ella went home and wrote 10 pages about her experience.
“Every grain of sand…”
Clearly, there was an impact.
More than a decade later, Ella, now in Boston, majoring in Trauma Relief and Psychology, dealing with her own loss from across the country, decided that she needed to be with us, to do something, to take action and support those that needed it.
She was the Phoenix we needed!! (Another Fun Fact: She truly is a beautiful bird…who taught our campers how to make origami Peace Cranes when she was a child herself!)
The four of us, along with Amelia, a brilliant peace activist who has been with us most years (and who lost her precious home in the fires) set out to create a curriculum together. We decided that the theme needed to be something that would help us all and provide us tools to move through all of this. Our theme was Reflect, Reframe, and Manifest. In the trauma that was this year, we have all had to reframe things, literally from minute to minute…sometimes dozens of times each day. If anything brought any semblance of peace to our days, it was this.
Through art, yoga, skits, and music, we modeled the act of literally reflecting in the mirror, thinking negative thoughts, and then reframing those thoughts. The students practiced with their own mirrors. We learned what you can do when things feel broken…make art with the pieces We created mosaics and learned about a local artist, former Aveson teacher, who is literally dreaming up and creating a beautiful mural with other Altadena community members, using the ceramic pieces from so many lost Altadena homes.
One of our most treasured longtime Peace Camp youth leaders, (and later Camp Staff), not only lost his home in the fire, but multiple homes in his family. One of the ways they dealt with the loss was to sing. Students heard how Julius’s family performed on America’s Got Talent, with a standing ovation from the audience. Another example of how creativity can help us heal.
There are always so many magical stories to tell that empower and inspire us to continue each year. For many, Peace Camp is a safe, calm, and magical space. The night before our first day, we received a call from a former family. The mother had a stroke and they were all in shock. Her two high school daughters needed somewhere to go for the week and the father could not think of a better place than Peace Camp. The week was filled with lots of tears and hugs and lessons for them. One of the young ladies spent hours and hours on an art project, creating beautifully painted rocks with inspirational messages. She was visiting her mom for the first time in the hospital at the end of the week and she wanted to provide her with handmade gifts to give to the nurses and doctors that helped her. Her family was very grateful for camp and we were thrilled that we were able to have a space for them to be.
It takes a village. And when your village burns down, the community comes together to process, mourn, create, and rebuild, together. Peace Camp was an opportunity to create some semblance of peace and joy and hope, in all of our hearts. We are very grateful so many hearts and minds came together to make this year possible.
In Gratitude…
This article is part of our Newsletter 2025 Issue 4. See all articles.
