Headshot Photo of Madeline Salvatierra
2018 Award Recipient

MadelineSalvatierra

Project Camps to Explore and Empower (CEE)

Location North Tustin, CA

Issue Area Education | Poverty

Madeline loves summer camp, a place where she made lifelong memories. When she realized youth from low-income backgrounds don’t have access to the same positive experiences that shape their development, Madeline decided to unite her love of camp with her desire to empower at-risk children. Through her Girl Scout Gold Award-winning project, Camps to Explore and Empower (CEE), Madeline has enabled low-income youth to pursue their dream careers.

Now entering its third year, CEE provides more than 40 hands-on activities that help at-risk youth ages 6-12 explore careers in science, art, law, cooking, language/tourism, sports, business, computer science, and more through an easily-implemented model available to any youth-serving organization. Madeline has created guidebooks to help accelerate the process of expanding CEE across the country.

Creating CEE challenged me to think creatively about how I could pursue tikkun olam, and it required me to be tenacious when reaching out to organizations to nationalize my project. Most of all, it showed me that I can be a leader: today, of Camps to Explore and Empower, and tomorrow, of a larger organization.

Madeline Salvatierra
“It is never too late, too early, or too often TO GIVE BACK AND MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE”
Helen Diller