Sappi Ideas that Matter - Book 7

North America
Bright Eyes – Celebrating the Alkulana Experience
Camp Alkulana
At Camp Alkulana, a summer camp for the underprivileged
youth from Richmond, Virginia, Meredith
Carrington learned many lessons. First as a camper,
then as a counsellor during high school and college,
then as a member of the camp’s support team, which
acts as its Board of Directors.
With a unique understanding borne of first hand
experience, Meredith – a designer at Merit Ink Design
in Richmond – was trying to find a way of distilling the
essence of Camp Alkulana.
Regarding design, she decided to keep things extremely
minimal; large colour solids, simple serif text, and full
bleed photography. She felt that too much ‘design’
would take away from the beauty of the simplistic
photos and touching stories.
The campaign was kicked off with a reception to
which the entire camp ‘family’ (consisting of all past
and present campers and counsellors, as well as
every recorded volunteer) was invited, as well as key
community leaders and press.
“When considering how to communicate almost 100
years of camp history, and thousands of personal
stories, I knew I could not possibly cover it all. I decided
to solicit personal photos and stories from anyone
associated with Alkulana – campers, counsellors
and volunteers. From their submissions, I selected a
variety of serious, sentimental, historical and humorous
accounts, which created a feeling of visual and textual
collaboration,” she said.
The impact of the book on the hundreds of campers
that turned up at the event exceeded even Meredith’s
expectations, and the praise that the campaign has
garnered from the press for the sensitive way in which
individual stories were told in words and pictures has
placed Camp Alkulana and the underserved children
of Richmond, Virginia on the public agenda.
78