Camper, counselor, Food Manager, Women's Week Attendee (back in the Day!) Board Member, Advisory Board Member, Family Camp Attendeet: I started going to Unalayee when I was 12 and just keep going, in one role or another, for some very good reasons: As a camper and counselor, because pushed and expanded and supported me in growing as a person socially, emotionally, physically (lots of challenges! Lots of support!) and spiritually. Also, at Unalayee environmental awareness and appreciation is necessarily intrinsic and embedded; as a 30-something person, I realized I kept going back because I always came away with a feeling of deep and lasting Hope for the future because of the people there, mostly, and the enduring beauty of the wilderness. Also, I came to believe, as an elementary school teacher, that If You Want Children to Care About The World You MUST Show Them A World Worth Caring About, and Unalayee, still, does this better than anyplace else I've ever learned of. AND! The Board and Community's incredible commitment to that idea -- No child is turned away for lack of funds, Unalayee works hard to get any child who want to attend On The Bus. Two more things: when I asked my mother, a few years ago, why she kept sending my brother -- with whom I fought vociforously for years -- back up, she said, "When you two came back after that first year, you got along better, more deeply, and for a very long time. I was standing in the backyard watching you two months later one day and I thought "Whatever they are doing up there, it's good and it's working and I'm sending them back". Unalayee still leaves a deep and lasting impact on children. My two kids went, and are still involved as well -- and are still backpackers, ethical campers. And, Bonus: my daughter was well prepared for African Village life in the Peace Corps because of living in the wilderness for weeks on end! What's not to love?

I give away books on the school bus I drive in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bess met with me on her National Tour and generously donated several boxes of appropriate books for me to give as I do, to individual students on a day-by-day basis, as well as GREAT picks of hers for me to pass on to a couple of local after-school learning programs. She is a passionate promoter of love of literacy. Her enthusiasm and dedication are infectious, her generosity of time, energy and resources inspirational. I can't think of a better way to allocate your donation dollars than to Back the Bus!