Through the years, lots of kids got to romp around in the mountains of North Carolina, sit at a potter's wheel, paddle in whitewater and fall asleep to a chorus of crickets, thanks to a Florida woman.
Jodi John Pippin was one of those kids.
Fran Price, the woman who made that experience possible for Pippin, died two years ago at the age of 93. By all accounts, she was a woman whose zest for life was surpassed only by her boundless compassion. She loved many things, including the outdoors, children and Eagle's Nest, a camp in Pisgah Forest that has its headquarters in Winston-Salem.
She believed that a week or so at Eagle's Nest could be a transformational experience. Each summer, for more than 15 years, Price paid up to $3,000 to send a child to the camp. In most cases, she didn't know the camper.
Noni Waite-Kucera is the executive director of the camp. Her grandfather, Alex Waite, a child psychologist and professor at Rollins College in Florida, started Eagle's Nest in 1945. Sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, Price sent her children to the camp.
"My grandfather had a concept that children needed these experiences to be good citizens of the world, to be good leaders. And I can see they thought along the same lines," Waite-Kucera said of her grandfather and Price.
Many years later, Price decided that Pippin should go to camp. Pippin, who was about 10 at that time, was a friend of Price's granddaughter. Pippin's mother was single and struggling financially.
She looks back on her first trip to Eagle's Nest as a magical time.
"For a little Florida girl on food stamps, seeing the glorious fog coming off the river was an exhilarating experience," Pippin said. "When I got back home, I didn't stop talking for 72 hours. It almost weaves itself in your heart. It was just a natural fit, and I felt so comfortable there."
Price continued to pay Pippin's camp fees for several more years. When Pippin aged out of camp, Price started a scholarship fund to pay for a camper to go to Eagle's Nest each summer.
When Price died two years ago, she left money to Eagle's Nest to be used for scholarships. In one of those heart-tugging examples of paying it forward, Pippin is stepping in to help endow the Fran Price Camp Scholarship Fund.
Friday, Pippin, who is an art instructor at Mitchell Community College, is donating 30 of her paintings to an art sale and show at Blessings at 823 Reynolda Road.
Pippin, a Statesville resident, has shown in local galleries. She uses bold colors in an impressionist style and often paints rural scenes and landscapes.
"When she passed away, I thought that there has to be a way to help. It's always hard to know how to say ‘Thank you' to her family in words," Pippin said. "I didn't know what to do to live up to her example but I had some artwork, and I thought, ‘What if we have a big sale?'"
Paige Lester-Niles, the director of Eagle's Nest, said that part of the benefit's goal is to shed some light on the importance of camp, particularly at a time when many families are facing budget constraints.
"We hope to raise awareness about what an amazing growth experience Eagle's Nest is for a child and that we need more people like Fran," Lester-Niles said.
Eagle's Nest hopes to raise $25,000 for the scholarship fund and award its first scholarship by 2011.
"I did learn great skills," Pippin said of camp. "But more than that, there was an underlying understanding of community and responsibility. And gosh, if we don't have that, everything else doesn't really matter."
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