Meet Emily Ballestrini!

Hi. I’m Emily, I was a camper myself back before the flood – and the fire! I’ve been all over the world since then (and a few times before, it’s true) and this is the one place I really, truly have not been able to resist returning to.

Think of me as a salmon, only with a longer, more convoluted life-span? I’m returning this summer for the first month with the glorious title of Artist in Residence and my three children (that’s where the longer, more confusing salmon analogy returns. If I really were a salmon, I’d be long out of the picture, possibly as decorative fodder on a bagel. I’m grateful for small favors. And robust flavors…).

My chosen arts are relief prints and book arts, with occasional forays into paper engineering (but not origami: that’s a whole different universe!) and animation. I chew ice year ‘round. I think of this as a bad habit that I’m not sufficiently interested in breaking.

I’m also a big fan of naps, and I’m looking forward to having a defined Rest Hour after lunch again – I’ll be sad if that’s been consigned to the dust heap of history!

Meet Adelaide Baber!

Who is Adelaide Baber?

Well, let me enlighten you. Many of my campers call me “cool-aide” because that’s often times how I introduce myself because it rhymes with my first name. I am one of the few “home-grown” counselors, so I figured what better way to tell you how I got to where I am now than through a fun little story with pictures. Yes, you get to see pictures of me through several stages of life from the cute to awkward to being a counselor. J

The Story of Adelaide Baber as a Coppercreeker…

Once Upon a time there was ten year old little girl named Adelaide who adventured to a faraway place called Coppercreek. She spent her first 2-weeks away from home in a cabin called Billabong.

Every summer, Adelaide could hardly wait to find out who her counselor was and to reunite with old camp friends…

She grew so fond of Copprecreek that she wanted to spend as much time as possible there… soon 2-weeks turned into 4-weeks.. and then an additional Horsemastership Session to end the summer.

At 13years old, Adelaide got to go on her first ever backpacking trip that was 3days and 2nights in Lassen National Park. She fell in love with the outdoors.

Although Adelaide was very adventurous by nature she was “deathly afraid of heights.” However, with the support and encouragement from counselors and fellow campers she overcame her fear and climbed to new heights.

In 2004, Adelaide participated in the 2-week Trek Leadership program and got to go to the Lava Beds to go caving, 4day backpacking trip, and white water rafting down the Trinity River.

Adelaide had such a great time on 2-week Trek that she went on 4-week Trek the following summer. A few highlights of the trip were an 8-day Backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps and a 4day white water rafting trip down the Klamath River.

The summer of 2006, Adelaide was a Counselor in Training (CIT). It was strange for her to be back in camp after spending the previous summer on Trek, but she fell in love with Traditional camp all over again. She was ecstatic when she was invited back as a Junior Counselor for the following summer.

As a Junior Counselor, she got to go on outpost with campers and run some activities.

Best of all, she and her long time camp friends got to spend one more summer being silly and entertaining campers.

Before the little girl knew it she had grown into a young lady, and 8 summers of making lifelong memories and friendships at Coppercreek had flown by. She was now a high school graduate and worst of all… an Adult!

The highlights of her summer that year were not nearly as exciting as her previous ones at Coppercreek but they; included, working at her Granny’s clothing store, wakeboarding, working as a counselor at a Leadership Summer camp, and dropping her little sister off for her first 2-week Trek experience.

In the fall of 2008, Adelaide moved into college at the University of the Pacific.

Although she had moved away from home she still kept in contact with her family by running races with her Mom. They even ran the San Francisco Women’s Nike Marathon!

Adelaide found that she could dress up silly like she use to for camp dances at some college functions. Like in this picture that was taken at a 80s themed event. That night brought back a lot of great camp memories!

Adelaide had an amazing first year of college, but missed all of her great times at Coppercreek. So she made the best decision of her adult life and applied to be a counselor.

She got to spend her mornings with the “Barn Rats,” feeding the small animals, and mountain biking. Then spent the afternoons lifeguarding at the pool or driving the boat and teaching campers how to wakeboard, waterski, and/or kneeboard. But, best of all she got to be a cabin counselor to little girls just like she was once upon a time.

Hi Everyone!!

I hope you enjoyed my story and pictures of my years as a Coppercreeker! I’m already counting down the days until First session begins and can hardly wait to see all the old and new faces! My 2^nd year of college has been great and gone by a little too fast. People keep telling me that as you grow older the faster time goes by and I’m not sure if I like that or not. I hope that all of you are having a fantastic school year and are just as excited as I am to try new things and go on fun adventures this summer!

Love Always,

Adelaide or “Cool-Aide”

Meet Sean Willson-Schafer

Sean Willson-Schafer is a thinker, an adventurer, an entrepreneur, a lover of the arts and outdoors- but mostly Sean is a biology major on the brink of graduation and entry into the (gasp) real world!

Sean was born and raised up in Ukiah, CA, a small town in Mendocino county which is a little bit north of the Bay Area. During his childhood years, Sean fell in love with the redwoods and the coast, making sure to spend as much time as he could running around on the beach, creek-stomping and climbing fallen logs. This life-style made Sean fall in love with the natural world in turn influenced his choice of studies when it came to going to college

Sean has been studying at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR for the last four years and will be graduating at the end of this semester. He has been working on a biology major along with an art minor. Particularly Sean is interested in the ecological sciences and during has education has enjoyed courses in plant bio, micro-bio and marine bio. Currently he is doing a study for an ecology class that involves Western Hemlock seedling viability in local forests around Lewis and Clark- a.k.a Sean figured out a way to hike around the forests and get dirty for hours on end while getting school credit.

For his art minor Sean has mostly focused on various topics in art history while also dabbling in sculpture and drawing. When not working hard on his studies, Sean tries to enjoy the northwest as much as possible. Whether its exploring the nooks and crannies of Portland, hanging out on the coast, or aimlessly driving through the beauty of Oregon, Sean finds plenty of ways to relax or unwind from school.

He also just discovered the wonderful sport of cross-country skiing and is trying that out as much as he can. For life after college, Sean plans to find a research assistant job, but more importantly is really interested in the area of forestry and after the summer plans to come pack up to Portland and find a job or internship in that field. This is Sean’s 7^th summer at Coppercreek (2^nd on staff) and is excited to be returning to camp for a whole new batch of new adventures and to see old faces and meet plenty of new ones.

Meet Cynthia Yeh

My name is Cynthia. My last name is Yeh. It sounds like the backwards of “hey!”

Even though it forced me to be in the back of the line when we had to stand in alphabetical order according to last names, I’ve always liked my last name.

This summer will be my first summer at Coppercreek and I’m stoked. We don’t have to stand in line in alphabetical order for showers and meals do we? Regardless, I’m still stoked!

I’m from sun shiny California and I was born and raised in San Jose (some call it Silicon Valley because we are the hub of the tech world).

Therefore, it makes sense that my daddy is a programming engineer and my mommy is a network engineer. Me, I studied Biochemistry and Environmental Science, and received my undergraduate degree at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

I had a fun time in SLO, made some great friends, learned how to be more independent, and got to try all sorts of new skills which I will attempt to hone at Coppercreek this summer.

To be honest, I’m not really great at any one skill. However, I love to learn and try new things. While at Cal Poly I tried out horseback riding. Here’s a picture of me and my horse Casey.

Also, throughout college I was a volunteer for Tricalifornia Events Inc, in helping organize triathlons in California. With them, I got to do many cool and fun things to prepare and run these races, such as kayaking around athletes, driving a forklift, throwing cement blocks from a boat, organizing 300 volunteers to be happy while doing unpleasant tasks, practicing teamwork and team building, staying up for 70 hours on adrenaline, napping on demand, and more!

While I may try to be hardcore and tough, I like being a princess sometimes too. I enjoy going ocean fishing for salmon just as much as I like to dress up for the Renaissance faire.

Or a ninja using a horse lead to climb a roof.

It doesn’t end there though; I’m older than I look! I am 24 years old now, which means it’s been over 2 years since I’ve graduated from Cal Poly, SLO. Right after college, I landed in Romania as a Peace Corps volunteer. It was something I was pursuing since I was 17 years old. Oh…but I’ve been wanting to be a camp counselor since I was 14 years old. I like to believe that some dreams take a while, but if you keep pursuing them, they’ll happen eventually.

Here I am with my Romanian cake. Teachers at a school presented me this cake for working with them on a project. Romania is where Nadia Comaneci (the gymnast who scored the first perfect 10 at the Olympics) was born, it’s next to the Black sea, and may also be recognized as being the host country of Dracula. He is a myth. I have been here 2 years, and I’ve been to almost all the castles here and I’ve not seen any sign of vampires. But…I never explored them at night…

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Romania, I work in the mayor’s office on community and economic development. I live in a small community of 5,500 people, and besides working at the mayor’s office I more often do small project in the community. Being a Peace Corps volunteer isn’t just about helping and teaching others, it’s just as equally about learning from the people I live with.

I’ve refined domestic skills such as learning how to make mayonnaise from scratch, and to pickle pairs of peppers and cucumbers to make pickles.

I’ve learned how to raise little energetic puffballs to become curious, healthy, and independent chickens and roosters. (She’s not a mutant- I pasted sunflower seeds to her head).

Examples of work I’ve done within my community would be:
I’ve partnered up with teachers to organize events for their students, such as dressing up to celebrate Halloween. (It was a special triumph that I coerced the teacher to dress up in a costume too!)

Most of the time, it was just me and kids hanging out together doing our own thing. Visits to the village river, Olympics week, or the Amazing Race, cooking Chinese food, we did all sorts of fun stuff.

No matter where I am, or what I’m doing, you’ll find that I love living life and I cannot wait to spend my summer at Coppercreek.

I can’t wait to meet everyone!!