Parkland, Florida's Camp Shine

The students who were involved in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Florida needed to start to heal. SHINE MSD, a non-profit born from the tragedy, wanted to help heal the community through the arts after their two daughters wrote their song SHINE (as played on CNN TownHall), and found comfort in performing.

Invited by the Oz Effect to help run a ground-breaking summer program called Camp Shine, Lady Who was also involved with their ongoing strategy for social media. Designed and run by leading national creative arts therapists, the camp helped students discover their unique voices through music, theatre, and visual arts while making much needed connections with their peers. Online, we developed an anonymous way for students to share feelings and garner outreach.

We not only connected and introduced the lead therapist to the program, we developed a guidebook for future schools who would (unfortunately) go through the same trauma. We led their social media & grass-roots marketing campaigns to find students who were in need of help.  We were able to increase their fundraising through the social media programs, as well as find more students to take part, encourage active sharing of trauma and create a safe-space online in times of need.

A VOICE TO LISTEN: In moments of distress, we used Instagram Stories to let students share their stories of grief, and we had a therapist on the other end to reach back out.

A PLACE TO SHARE: If students weren’t able to come to the camp classes, we encouraged them to share their creativity online. Students developed dozens of new songs, pieces of art, poems and writings to share with the other students.