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Winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund - October 30, 2007
Kimberly Jackson Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
October 30, 2007

Seattle, Washington Resident Wins Cash Award To Create Summer Camp For Homeless Girls In The Seattle Area


(New York, NY, October 30, 2007) Seattle, Washington resident Kimberly Jackson, 35, is one step closer to fulfilling her dream of creating a better tomorrow for her community. Kimberly was named this week’s winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, a weekly $5,000 cash award program from Avon Products, Inc. to support individuals in their work to empower women. Kimberly will apply her award towards the creation of Camp Lori, a summer camp program for homeless young girls in her community, so that they, too, can have the opportunity to “just be kids.”

Kimberly’s dear friend, Lori Nelson, who succumbed at an early age to ovarian cancer, is the inspiration and namesake for Camp Lori. An impassioned activist for children, Lori worked at an Oregon camp for underprivileged children while pursuing her graduate degree in child psychology. Her accounts of the positive impact of the camp on children moved Kimberly to take action in her memory. Kimberly dedicated her life to helping children, completing a degree in social work with a focus on youth and family services. She committed her time to a domestic violence shelter, and soon after began managing an emergency shelter for families.

In 2005, Kimberly began working with homeless children – a prevalent issue in Seattle, where on any given night at least half of the 8,300 homeless on the streets are families with young children. She witnessed firsthand the devastating emotional and physical impact of homelessness on the young, who lack basic necessities such as shelter and proper nutrition and are deprived of emotional support or guidance and often face abuse. Among homeless children who attend school, there is also the problem of ostracism and stigmatization from classmates.

Kimberly dreamed of creating a safe haven that would offer homeless children a respite from the isolation and hardship of their everyday lives; a place that would allow them to socialize and create lasting friendships, and have the childhoods, if only temporarily, that homelessness can prevent. Kimberly wanted to offer girls in the Seattle area the same benefits of a camp experience that she learned of through her late friend Lori’s work. It was from this desire that Camp Lori was born.

To set Camp Lori in motion, Kimberly began recruiting volunteers, including social workers and a psychologist, to address the special needs of the girls she was targeting: approximately 50-75 girls in first through sixth grade. In addition, she began scouting locations, finally selecting a campground about an hour outside Seattle that offered all of the activities that these children could want, such as swimming, hiking, ropes courses and campfires. The operating costs of running the camp were lofty, however, and Kimberly sought assistance to set the program in motion for its inaugural summer in 2008.

Kimberly’s Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund award will underwrite the costs of operating the camp, including the costs of securing the camp facility and renting transport vehicles. She also plans to work with other community businesses to provide other basic necessities for the campers, including camping gear, meals, and art supplies.

Kimberly’s winning application to the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund fell under the category of “Community Service,” one of three areas the Fund supports. Her proposal met the criteria to clearly present unique and achievable objectives to empower women or girls and ultimately improve society. It was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including Suze Orman, America’s most recognized expert on personal finance. “Yes!,” exclaimed Orman of Kimberly’s proposal. “This is a great, great application! It should be followed and used as a case study! Perfect.”

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