One week after wildfires forced her family to evacuate their eastern Washington home, Mareesha Backman handed her youngest son to a stranger and took her first deep breath of relief. The stranger was part of a pop-up day camp hosted by Spokane public schools for children of survivors. Backman arrived feeling 'stunned' - hot, poorly showered, and underslept - but the camp's volunteers let her go to a doctor's appointment, run errands, and simply sit in the air-conditioned quiet of a friend's home.
'This is going to sound so corny,' she said, tearing up. 'It kind of felt like the hug that I needed was there. And I was going to be OK, and there were people there who wanted to support us, help us, and I didn't have to figure it out on my own anymore.'
The wildfires, which began in early August, forced 60,000 people to evacuate and destroyed an estimated 920 structures. Spokane public schools reported that 169 students and 38 staff members lost their homes, as did an additional 20 students in the smaller Nine Mile Falls school district, a semi-rural wooded area northwest of the city.
As climate change makes extreme weather an increasingly common part of childhood, networks and organizations have grown to support children and families during such crises. 'Education in emergencies' - centering children's needs in emergency response - is a best practice with roots in international humanitarian aid, now finding relevance at home. Sarah Dryden-Peterson, who researches refugee education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, said it ideally means 'creating some predictable routines and structures so that the emergency and disaster can feel more understandable by young people.'
Within a day of the fire, Spokane-area public schools had teamed up with national nonprofits, local churches, and small businesses to offer free day camp to affected families. Spokane public schools also opened one high school as a resource center, providing donated food, toiletries, and help with insurance claims. School staff volunteered to supervise children in the auditorium and gym, while the district's summer lunch program provided meals.
'As an educator, I feel it's our moral imperative,' said Laurie Morrison, Spokane public schools' chief academic officer. 'When our students and their families are facing unimaginable devastation, we stand in the gap to offer even the slightest ease to their burden and to support their wellbeing. It's an easy answer to, "If not you, then who?"'
Within days, Project:Camp - a nonprofit whose entire mission is popping up free day camps after disasters - joined the effort. Cofounder Mikey Latner, compact and curly haired, noted that the Covid pandemic underscored the importance of childcare and schools. Since 2021, his organization has mounted 33 post-disaster camps in 10 states, from Hurricane Ian in Florida to the Maui and Los Angeles wildfires to tornadoes in Kentucky.
Jeff Baerwald, superintendent of the Nine Mile Falls school district, was shocked at how quickly they reached out. 'I very jokingly, positively call them ambulance chasers for the good,' he said. In Spokane, Project:Camp served hundreds of children at two locations over three weeks before shutting down so schools could prep for the semester.
On a hot, dry Monday two weeks after the fire, more than 100 children checked in at Project:Camp's second location, Lake Spokane elementary. While tweens played outside, little kids sat cross-legged in the gym, captivated by Abby Cadabby, the pink-haired Sesame Street fairy, whose performer Leslie Carrara-Rudolph had flown in from New York City. Kids also played laser tag, petted therapy dogs, and fed live buffalo.
These bells and whistles are nice but not necessary, said Latner, whose background is in traditional summer camp. His group can set up with no more than two plastic totes of supplies like T-shirts and name tags; the rest comes from donations or a local Walmart run. What matters most is getting parents to trust them with their kids in a stressful situation, which means collaborating with familiar groups: schools, churches, World Central Kitchen, the Red Cross, YMCA, and Boys & Girls Clubs.
When it works, national groups bring resources and fresh energy; local groups bring cultural competence and relationships. 'Looking at it from the small, rural community perspective, outsiders aren't always going to be embraced,' said Baerwald, who found that teaming up with local churches was key in Nine Mile Falls.
Project:Camp isn't overtly a therapy camp, though it makes referrals to local clinicians when appropriate. The setup is familiar: kids are divided into 'cabins' by age and rotate through sports, games, and arts and crafts on a schedule. Latner cites the science of 'adverse childhood experiences' (ACEs), noting that 'one of the key tenets is returning kids to a sense of safety and normalcy and routine, reestablishing relationships.'
As the Backman family's experience shows, those who don't lose homes or school days are also affected. While evacuating, they drove through smoke that turned day to night and saw a house engulfed in flames. The family of seven ended up on a Christmas tree farm in Idaho, crammed into their old travel trailer. 'The batteries blew, exploded. So our fridge in the camper died. We had no running water. We had no running toilet. We were just living in a hot box. And out in the smoke and the heat most of the day,' said Backman. The kids regressed, clinging, fighting, and waking with night terrors - especially hard on 7-year-old Bennett, who is slight, flaxen blond, and medically fragile with a feeding tube.
Backman's family was evacuated for nine days, but she felt lucky; her husband Chris works for Spokane public schools in administration at Holmes elementary, where four staff members and at least one student lost homes. Latner emphasizes that camps welcome everyone affected, directly or indirectly.
It was a Project:Camp gratitude circle that made Backman realize the enormity of what her children had been through. On the drive home the second day, Bennett said, 'Well, we just did this thankfulness circle, and I told them I was just glad I didn't die in the fires.' Backman recalled, 'My brain went, "Oh my gosh, my children are traumatized."' Though hard to hear, she was grateful the conversation started. 'Going to camp meant they were surrounded by adults who a) love kids and b) brought in this kind of trauma-informed practice.'
By Day 18 after the fire, Project:Camp was packing up, considering next stops like a tropical storm in Hawaii or a flood in Indiana. Meanwhile, Spokane organizations are thinking about long-term needs. Baerwald said every child in his district has been affected in some way, and he hopes to help the community regenerate as the landscape will. 'I'm driving past this burn scar right now. I see it multiple times a day. And we'll start seeing new growth come back, but that will take some time. That will also be part of the healing process.'
This story about Project:Camp was produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.