When I was hosting karaoke at Sisters nightclub, I would occasionally hear people yell up to the stage, “Hey, Rainbow Sprinkles!” No, this was not my stripper name; it was actually the title of a children’s CD I wrote and performed on several years back. The CD (ahem, available on iTunes … ) was for children from LGBT families and featured a number of kids from Mountain Meadow, a very special camp for kids with alternative families. Mountain Meadow is no more but I’m happy to say that there’s a new place for our kids, Camp Highlight, and it’s just as fantastic — maybe more so! We spoke to co-founder and counselor Chris Hudson about kids these days and other stuff.
PGN: Tell me a little about yourself.
CH: I was the first child, born in Brooklyn to parents who had emigrated from Jamaica. They came through Canada and after a few years we moved to Long Island, where I spent most of my youth. From Long Island, I left to go to the University of Delaware where I studied psychology and sociology. I had an interest in working with people, especially children, and thought I’d be a teacher or a therapist.
PGN: My older brother played football there so I’m familiar with the fighting Blue Hens.
CH: Yes, the Blue Hens! It was a beautiful campus and a great experience. It was during college that I started working at a place called Camp Can Do. It’s a camp near Hershey — run by the American Cancer Society for children who have been diagnosed with cancer — and Can DO II, which is for their siblings.
PGN: Did you go to camp as a kid?
CH: I was too shy, plus my parents sent my brother and he came back with horror stories. I was very impressionable so that was enough to dissuade me. I wish I had because when I became a counselor at 19 I loved it. I went on to do it for 20 years!
PGN: Oh wow, making up for lost time!
CH: Yeah. It was amazing to watch kids go from being camp kids to adults over that time span. There’s something to be said about being consistent. I knew I’d be there each year, the kids knew I was going to be there. Other than opening Camp Highlight, I consider that one of my greatest accomplishments.
PGN: Tell me a little about the folks. I have Jamaican ancestry and of course the joke is not just what we do but how many jobs you can hold at once!
CH: Yes! A ton of jobs. My father foremost was an electrician — he worked in a power plant — but he had a ton of other jobs. It was a running joke that I didn’t know what he looked like because he was away so much. My dad looks a little like Richard Pryor, so for a while I’d see Pryor on TV and say, “Dad!” My mom was a stay-at-home mom. After we were in high school, she went to cosmetology school.
PGN: You were a shy kid?
CH: I was. When we moved to Long Island, it was 1979 and we were the first black family to move into that area. It was tough. Looking back now, it was all new to me. When we went house hunting, I went into what would eventually be my bedroom and there were a bunch of white teenagers hanging out. I’d never seen white kids before. They looked like the cast of “That ’70s Show”! It feels like such an anachronistic memory now. Once we moved in, my brother and I pretty much kept to ourselves. Luckily in school, it was a small class, so I was able to make some good friends and we all grew up together. It took me a long time to come out of my shell, though.
PGN: Sounds like you made it out now!
CH: I did. But it took a long time. When I went to college, I was still very shy. Then my mom passed away my freshman year. She had cancer. That was difficult to say the least, but it was also a wake-up call for me. I realized that life was precious and it could be short. And that the things that you’re afraid of or don’t want to do are the things you must absolutely do. So I applied to be a resident advisor my sophomore year. The idea of standing up and speaking in front of people, meeting people and glad-handing terrified me so I told myself, OK, if that’s what terrifies you, then guess what we’re doing tomorrow! I didn’t want to reach the end of my life having been afraid to do things. This story has a happy ending. I got the RA job and I have to say, being an RA has been instrumental to what I do now at camp. It showed me that I had the propensity to get up in front of people and to act silly and to command attention.
PGN: And no theatrical background? You sound like a theater person.
CH: I know! Don’t I? You would really think that. I recently reconnected with a friend from elementary school who was a theater person and she said, “Chris, how did you not end up in theater?” But like I said, I was a very shy kid, far too concerned with what people thought about me. When I got to college, that shifted a little and I began to grow into my own confidence and independence. By the time it happened, I was too busy to have time for theater!
PGN: What did you study?
CH: Psychology was my major, sociology my minor. I knew I wanted to work with kids in some capacity.
PGN: When did you come out?
CH: It was a gradual process that started when I was 5 and feeling that something was different, that I was not like the other boys but I didn’t know how. I remember hearing the word “homosexual” and looking it up in the giant abridged dictionary my parents had. There was an extremely technical explanation and I didn’t quite get it but I knew that the word applied to me. But back in the ’80s it was thought that it was a “phase.” I was precocious and had a lot of information in my head but didn’t understand what a lot of it meant. My understanding was, OK, this is who I am but I’ve read a lot about this puberty stuff. Maybe once I go through that, I’ll be like everybody else. I thought that was what “the change” would do. Then puberty hit and instead of being like everyone else, I doubled down on the person I was! I remember seeing a lot of movies with people coming out to their families in grand fashion at Thanksgiving dinner or some other dramatic way but that wasn’t my experience. I told a few friends and there were a variety of reactions, but when I went to college I was pretty much in the closet. It wasn’t until I was in my early to-mid-20s that I felt comfortable living my life openly. By my late 20s I’d tell any and everybody!
PGN: What about the family?
CH: Before my mom passed away, she tried to talk to me about it, but I was an awkward teen and couldn’t handle it. I was like [in a whiny voice], “What are you talking about?” But she tried, she knew. As for the rest of the family, Jamaicans are notoriously homophobic and I was prepared to have to let people go. I told some cousins and aunts and there was a bit of education needed but then they were fine. I love my family and we’re really close. I talked to my dad about it too, he was the last one. He also passed from cancer but we spoke a few years before he died. It was important I suppose, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I loved him very much and he loved me very much but we never really discussed the details of my personal life, about anything. His concerns were always that I had enough to eat, clothes on my back and money in the bank. He was a very practical parent.
PGN: What inspired the idea for Camp Highlight?
CH: There were several. At Camp Can Do, some people came because they needed to clock volunteer hours but I was there because I loved it. The kids were there for four days and I wanted to give them the time of their lives. We got a new counselor named Jackie who was also over the top. She was there for the kids and was like a clown — she’s going to kill me for saying that — who never broke character. I was horrified and fascinated by her! [Laughs] We became friends and we were the best counselors at the camp. Sounds like bragging but it was the truth because we worked at it. We put on a show and the kids loved it. Over time, Jackie started suggesting that we start our own camp. At the time, I was like, “Hey, we’re like rock stars here. You don’t ask rock stars to produce the show, they just do their thing and then drop the mic and leave.” Plus at the time, my dad was really ill and I was dealing with that. Then I went to the New York Pride Parade and — besides the firemen — seeing the kids in the parade was always the best part. I get such a thrill watching the kids from Harvey Milk High School marching because they’re so proud and have such joy and infectious energy. One time I saw COLAGE [Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere] marching. They were out there with their parents and I thought about the fact that those kids have to deal with a lot of the same things that young gay kids deal with — homophobia, secrecy at school, coming out to friends about who their families are — and it’s not even an issue of sexual orientation for them. We’ve created some systems to deal with the issues affecting gay youth — homelessness, depression, suicide, etc. — but who catches these kids? This is what was in my mind as I was watching the parade. The last piece of the puzzle was Barack Obama running for office in 2008. The Republicans were trying to get their bona fides by attacking gay families, saying they would sign a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage and prohibiting gay people from adopting children because we were all pedophiles. I thought about the COLAGE kids hearing this on TV, being 7 years old and hearing from someone who wanted to be president that your families were bad and that your parents wanted to harm you. In 2009, my dad passed away and, like when my mom passed, I thought, Well Chris, life is short and you need to do the thing that you are most afraid to do. So the next time Jackie asked if I wanted to start a camp, I said yes and told her I had an idea.
PGN: Why Highlight?
CH: The idea is that there is so much darkness in the world that we want to make our kids into beacons. We want to fill them with so much light that they light each other up and that when they go back into the world, they’ll light their communities up as well. I was inspired by a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.” We talk to the kids a lot about being better people. If someone is mean or cruel, you don’t retaliate, you just shine brighter.
PGN: Give me the parent pitch about the camp.
CH: It’s our sixth year in operation and we rent a summer camp right outside of Reading, Pa. Even though Jackie and I are both social workers, it isn’t a therapy camp; it’s a traditional camping experience. We have archery, arts and crafts, we have a climbing wall, swimming, nature hikes and a nature hut where they can have experiences with reptiles, etc., all the things you’d expect at camp. Our goal is to provide a top-notch recreational experience, but our secret goal is to build a world where there are fewer jerks and less hate. We have a program called the 9 Virtues; we don’t teach morals but we try to incorporate them into everything we do. We challenge kids on things like responsibility, honesty, cooperation, etc. I’ve heard great feedback from the parents on the effect it has on their kids and the kids themselves really get into it. It’s also important to acknowledge that this is a specific population of kids who have similar circumstances, and we encourage them to connect with each other and with the counselors who mostly are LGBTQ or who have LGBTQ families. The young kids just mostly want to get in the pool but even they benefit. I once walked by as the kids were selecting teams and I heard, “Everyone with two dads over here! Everyone with two moms over here!” That’s not something they can do on most playgrounds.
PGN: I love that you ban cell phones. Have you had much pushback?
CH: [Laughs] That’s the number-one thing parents and kids ask about! I’ve been in the camp arena for 25 years and in that time it’s like the kids never really age; they’re always 8-17 so I’ve seen the effect when cell phones hit the scene. But we tell the kids, “We want you to get every morsel of this experience and we don’t want technology getting in the way.” It’s mostly the parents who get upset — they want to be able to contact the kids 24/7 — but we just tell them they’re welcome to call the counselors on our cells at any time but to let the kids enjoy the experience. Now the kids are used to it. They’ll show up and thrust the phones at us to be returned the next week and they actually love it.
PGN: It’s so important. Kids need to disconnect and think on their own.
CH: It’s true! At camp, we have this big rock and I’ll often come across a sea of kids sitting on it, not talking, just staring into space daydreaming. “What are you kids doing?” “Oh, nothing.” “Perfect.” I love it.
PGN: What’s a camper story that moved you?
CH: So many. We truly unconditionally love each kid and they know it. And it gives them permission to love and support each other. It’s amazing. Last year, we had a kid who’d been really shy, yet at the end he came out to the whole camp. On stage! One year, we had a girl come in and you could tell she was slightly homophobic. She did an exercise where she wrote that she thought being gay was weird and that her mom was marrying a woman who she thought was gross. By the end of the week, it was like a cloud had lifted. I think she’d been hearing negative things from other people but here she was hearing positive things about her family. Now we’re Facebook friends and she’s open and proud of her family.
PGN: Tell me something interesting about a family member.
CH: Interesting … that’s such an omni-word. My mom was my best friend. I know it’s cliché: “News: Gay man best friends with mom.” She was drop-dead gorgeous and didn’t take shit from anyone. She lit up a room, but on top of that she was hilarious and had the most infectious laugh! Once we bumped into a bunch of my school friends at the mall. One of them said, “Wow, Chris, is she your girlfriend?” I was mortified as my mother said, “Uh huh, I go to another school. It’s in a different district.” She was just a queen. I miss her every day. I think she would love the camp and the person I’ve become.
PGN: Back to you. Which celebrity would you hire as a camp counselor?
CH: RuPaul. He’s been such an inspiration and he figures into my coming-out story. In 1993, I saw RuPaul on TV and it took me halfway through the performance to figure out that I was watching a drag queen. It was the first black celebrity I ever saw who was out and proud and loving it — I mean loving it. I thought to myself, Chris, you don’t even want to take it to this level but you’re still not comfortable. What’s your problem? Look at this guy, up there having fun, shaking his ass and living life on his terms. It gave me the courage to come out fully and embrace it.
PGN: You should try to get him out to the camp. Everyone I’ve spoken to said he’s one of the nicest guys around.
CH: Oh my God, I would die. And so would the campers. So many of them also look up to him. That would be amazing. I’d love to show him the camp and let him know that in a small way, it exists because of him.
For more information on Camp Highlight, visit http://camphighlight.com/wp/.
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