FUTURE LEADERS
I Am a Product of My Environment By Samantha Terry
I
n 1996, at the age of 12, I’d just stepped off the 72-seat passenger school bus with my then-best-friend-for-the-week. I was there with my summer camp group at Centennial Olympic Park, the 21-acre green space nestled in between the Georgia World Congress Center, the OMNI (now Phillips Arena), Georgia Dome, CNN Center, Marietta Street and Baker Street. Having just finished our trip from southwest Atlanta with 60 other campers on the bus, the hot summer sun was certainly harsh, however, dashing through the Centennial Olympic Fountain of Rings offered a unique way to get some respite from the heat. This trip was one of several that I enjoyed with the Camp Best Friends summer program, facilitated through the city of Atlanta. For many of my campmates, it was their first time downtown. Although we were all life-long Atlanta residents, many of us had not left our communities. The furthest we had gone at any one time may have been to school or camp field trips. That hot day in July was no exception. Although a traditional summer day-camp program, Camp Best Friends offered more than “child care” to young Atlanta citizens. For most, ex-
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posure to a new place was gained; for me, it was perspective. Fast-forward 20 years and I am the director of the very program that played such a pivotal role in my life. History-Making In 1979, Atlanta was growing and stepping into its own identity, which would later brand the place as the “The City Too Busy to Hate.” It was developing into one of the United States’ most significant and essential transportation, commercial and financial hubs. With growth and
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Camp Best Friends participants enjoy arts and crafts, swimming, service-learning projects that benefit their communities and more.
popularity came more people, responsibility and liability. The infamous “missing and murdered children” cases (a series of murders of youth and adults from asphyxiation) plagued the city in 1979 as well. Between summer 1979 and spring 1981, 29 children and young adults were declared missing and eventually found dead. The first victims were two 14-year-old boys and a 12-year-old girl. Leading up to 1980, all of the victims