About 80s Summer Camp
We at 80s Summer Camp have set out on a quest to add more positivity to the world in any way, shape, or form that we can while at the same time bringing more attention to Mental Health Awareness.
It is our mission to help as many people as we can, to reconnect with their inner child, in an attempt to reduce stress and negativity that can be overwhelming in today’s world.
80s Summer Camp is a Positivity Group/ Mental Health Initiative that aims to promote mental health awareness through positivity, inclusion, grass roots activities, communication and creativity.
History
I started the group as a coping strategy to help deal with the trauma of the Forest Fire that destroyed a large portion of our city (Fort McMurray) but also to help with the stress of losing my father in law to Cancer 4 days after the city burned. You see for four years leading up to the fire I had been suffering from depression brought on by the loss of my own father and grandmother, both to cancer within a 11 month span. So on the day of the fire I decided I was not going to let these next hurdles end me, I decided I was going to use them to fuel me.
Since the day after the fire I have been pumping out as much positivity as I can in any way I can to both the online world through social media as well as in face-to-face events and random happenings. I have been writing and preforming parodies, positive posts, poetry, music, comedy skits and any other positive deed we can do, all in an attempt to inject unwavering positivity as much as I can. I have had numerous viral videos on the Internet reaching hundreds of thousands of people and we have been featured on many news networks and in numerous newspapers, online publications and radio stations (with interviews and parody songs).
Since beginning I have started selling and giving away t-shirts as a camp id badge since the "camp" is a virtual one in which people can take part by attempting to be positive as much as they can and posting positive things on social media as much as they can. Our shirts are a wearable symbol to raise awareness about mental health and to show people who are struggling with mental health issues that they are not alone.
We promote people doing good deeds and have camp challenges to entice people to engage in more socially rich interaction and to step away from their devices for a while. Basically we are promoting the type of activity and interaction that we grew up experiencing in the 80s and 90s and the 80s Summer Camp name is a metaphor for how fun and exciting everything was back then. We preform music and comedy and try to get others to have fun with creativity in an effort to rekindle a high level of community based communication.
We sell t-shirts and use that money to give more away to people who A. Cannot afford one B. Need a pick me up or C. Are just plain awesome, in an attempt to include as many people as we can and it is starting to take off. We have about 2000 campers across Canada, and in the U.S, and more people taking part every day all over the world.
