On our second episode, we get the distinct pleasure of sitting down with the veritable Kevin Cook (a.k.a. Poison Waters) to talk about their favorite program at CAP: Camp KC (Camp Kids Connection)! Beyond providing a safe, affirming, stigma-free summer camp experience, Camp KC also allows us to connect with these youth to talk about HIV. So in observance of National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day, we hope you will tune in to learn more about this incredible program (and maybe even sign up to volunteer in 2022)! Check out the full episode, including transcript, below!

Episode Transcript

Intro: Welcome to Vibrant, an Affirming healthcare podcast from Cap, Our House and Prism Health. I'm your host, Dustin Vance, and I'll be here sitting down with folks across our agency to get the inside scoop on the work they do to provide compassionate Affirming care to all those in our community. Let's get the show started.

Dustin: Today's special guest is a well known and well loved figure in our community, and I think they'll probably introduce themselves much better than I can. So I'm going to hand over the mic to you, Kevin.

Kevin: Hey, Dustin and everyone out there listening. I'm Kevin Cook, and my claim to fame is I’m also known as Poison Waters! My work with Cascades Project brings me out as Poison for special events, but primarily as Kevin for Camp KC, our HIV affected children's camp. That's what brings me to CAP year after year. I've actually been volunteering since 1988 with Cascade AIDS Project, starting out with their old, long ago forgotten program called P.A.L., which stood for personal, active listeners. And they matched folks in the community who wanted to befriend clients. And it really kind of changed my life working with the client that I was matched with. And so I try not to talk too much about it because it gets me all worked up.

Dustin: Totally understandable. You mentioned you work for Camp KC. Can you tell us a little more about camp and your role there?

Kevin: Sure. So this year is my 22nd year working with the HIV-affected children's camp community, and Camp KC, which stands for Kids Connection, is celebrating our 14th year! And we are so excited to be back in person after being gone for two years of the pandemic. I started out as a volunteer camp counselor and now I'm the volunteer camp director.

Dustin: Wow, that's incredible. I'm sure the kids love getting to see you each summer. How has the pandemic affected the camp experience for campers and their families?

Kevin: Well, the pandemic did affect us in a small way in that we couldn't actually meet in person. But, because of our campers and our volunteers, the program is just really built on resilience. We were able to figure out how to have Camp KC in a box, so we were able to get great things donated from our wonderful community to put all the camp related activities in a box so kids could do them all at home by themselves.

Dustin: Oh, that's so great that the kids got the chance to have that summer camp magic experience delivered to their door during the pandemic. I'm sure they loved that! So you're back in person this year for 2022?

Kevin: This year we're back in action after two years being away. We're so excited to be back at our beautiful campsite at the Oregon Coast. And it's kind of a blessing in disguise. We've been doing the same thing year after year after year just because everybody gets so busy, and it's easy to kind of do a rinse-and-repeat. Meanwhile the two year break of in-person camp has given us an opportunity, now, to kind of reinvent our wheel in a new and exciting way.

Dustin: Wow, it sounds like the campers are in for a really exciting summer ahead! But I have to ask, how do you manage to pull camp off all by yourself?

Kevin: Because I'm superhero! No, I'm just kidding. There's no way ever in the world I could do this all by myself. We have a wonderful leadership team, wonderful volunteer activities directors, and we also have a huge army of volunteers that work really hard all year long, and specifically, the week of camp.

Dustin: Oh my gosh, we have some amazing volunteers at camp, so I definitely am glad to hear that they're helping make that summer camp experience magical for all of our campers. If someone wanted to volunteer, how would they be able to do that?

Kevin: Well, if you want to volunteer for camp, we'd love to have you! You can just email me directly at campkc@capnw.org, and we accept volunteers 18 and over. And the only thing about our camp is that we are a residential camp, meaning we stay overnight for the full week. And our volunteers need to meet that full commitment because we need to keep consistency for our campers and we can't have people popping in and out. So if you can spend the week with us, we'd love to have you.

Dustin: That definitely makes sense. Well, I'll be sure to send some good folks your way. Coming up on April 10 is National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day. Besides providing a safe, affirming place for campers, I imagine camp is also a pretty great opportunity to talk with the campers about HIV and AIDS. How has camp served as an outreach tool to these campers and their families?

Kevin: It's really fantastic for campers when you're around your peers. So whether it's eight year olds talking to other eight year olds or 15 year olds talking to the 15 year olds, the volunteers, the adults, we just kind of sit back, step back, and let these campers talk freely to their peers about things that we wouldn't understand. They come from their own age group, their own shared experiences. And so, it's really kind of a great networking moment for these campers. The point of our camp is to erase the stigma that surrounds an HIV diagnosis. And for these children, most of them are affected, meaning their family member, parent or sibling. They carry around that secret. It's not something you talk about on the playground in a grade school or junior high school. So, we get to have this opportunity where everybody shares the same information. We all come from the same background in one degree or another regarding the HIV community. So the children get to really talk amongst themselves. We don't really preach to them. Well, we don't preach to them at all, but we don't bring up HIV and talk about it specifically, like daily in our activities. We just let it come up organically and we have a great mental health team, a great physical health team, and like I said, lots of great volunteers with tons of experience to help navigate those conversations.

Dustin: Wow, that's amazing that they have such a strong peer support group. Before we close out, what's a final message you might want to say to our audience as we go?

Kevin: That Camp KC is back and ready to roll. And if you would like to participate in any way, we have wonderful volunteer opportunities. We have wonderful donor opportunities. Lots of great support is needed to pull off this huge camp. We have about 50 to 60 campers and about 50 to 60 adult volunteers, and they all welcome your support in any way possible. You can email campkc@capnw.org.

Dustin: Well, I can imagine your inbox is going to be bursting at the seams with volunteers getting excited about hanging out with you and the kids at camp this summer. Thank you so much for spending today with us! I always love getting to steal a little bit of your time to catch up on all the exciting things going on in your world. And speaking of exciting things, a little birdie told me we can expect a fabulous appearance at this weekend's CAP + Our House Art Auction & After Party on April 9.

Kevin: That's right. They couldn't have it without Poison Waters. Well, actually, they could, and it would be just fine, but I wouldn't allow it. So I'm so excited to be back in person to do the art auction gala. I've successfully had wonderful times with past art auction galas and our house galas. So now to have them both merged together to this big, wonderful celebration of the work that both organizations, now combined as one, are doing in our community. I can hardly wait to be the mistress of ceremonies once again.

Dustin: Well, I'm sure I speak for us all and we say we can't wait to have you back. If you haven't had a chance to grab your own after party tickets for this year's art auction after party, make sure you head over to www.capartauction.org and pick up some for your friends too along the way. We can't wait to have you all there to hang out with us and all the other incredible members of the CAP, Our House, and Prism Health family. It's going to be an incredible party that you won't want to miss!

Outro: Well, that's our show all for today, folks. Thanks so much for tuning in and we can't wait to share another with you soon. Until then, if you have ideas for future episodes, Please don't hesitate to contact us at comms@capnw.org. Until then, stay vibrant!

About Cascade AIDS Project

CAP is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1985 as a grassroots response to the AIDS crisis. As the oldest and largest community-based HIV services provider in Oregon and southwest Washington, we seek to support and empower all people with or affected by HIV, reduce stigma, and provide the LGBTQ+ community with compassionate healthcare. We do so by helping to ensure the health and well-being of our program participants each year through health, housing, and other social services. When the need for affordable, accessible, and culturally affirming primary care services was identified as a community need, we responded by opening Prism Health in 2017.  More information can be found at www.capnw.org.