All doors were closed. That’s why Melissa Benson ’11 came to Berea College.
“I was in my 30s,” she explained. “I had never finished college, and it was something that always bothered me. My career had plateaued. They basically said to me, ‘You can’t get promoted any further because you don’t have a bachelor’s degree.’”
Going back to college was the only thing that could open doors for her, and Berea was the only option. “I couldn’t afford to pay tuition,” she said. “It was like, ‘if this doesn’t happen, it’s not happening for me.’”
Because of Berea, it did happen—she earned her bachelor’s degree, kicking off a second start and a new career. Today, she’s a Ph.D. candidate in multi-modal literacy and reader response theory at the University of Kentucky.
College wasn’t easy for Benson. As a nontraditional student with a child and family responsibilities, her college journey had more challenges than most traditional students face.
“Those of us who didn’t live on campus in the Ecovillage were kind of falling through the cracks,” she said. Berea College’s Ecovillage contains townhouses for nontraditional students, students who are married and/or have families. “So, I and a few others rebooted the Nontraditional Student Association.”
With help from Virgil Burnside ’74, former vice president for Student Life, they set up Frost Cottage, a small house on campus that was home to President William Frost at the turn of the century, as a hub for their organization and began to build community among Berea’s nontraditional students and provide them with resources for their unique circumstances.
After graduating from Berea, Benson continued to build community and help people connect with each other. In 2021, she founded Camp Beacon, Kentucky’s first summer camp for LGBTQ youth.
“I was trying to find a summer camp for my daughter, who is a lesbian, and we couldn’t find anything like what we were looking for in Kentucky,” Benson said.
Cofounded with her friend Jess Cleveland, Benson began interviewing potential staff, which included candidates with experience in mental health support. “We wanted to have a mental health team to be able to support the needs of our campers, because the LGBTQ population has a high rate of mental health struggles,” she said.
Crucial to this effort was Tena Robbins ’90, the first committee chair of the medical services team. “We couldn’t have built Camp Beacon without her,” Benson said.
Another key aspect was providing support for campers and their families once camp is over. “We’ve helped kids with name changes and connecting with mental health resources,” Benson said.
They also help campers keep in touch with each other once they’ve gone home, hosting a Discord server for Camp Beacon alumni.
… take the values, the skills, everything that you learned at Berea and go make the world a better place.
Melissa Benson ’11
The kids who attend Camp Beacon enjoy all the classic summer camp activities like horseback riding, arts and crafts, camping and canoeing. The camp is free of charge. Beyond having fun, Camp Beacon emphasizes giving its campers a voice.
“We have a youth council that informs our decision-making policy,” Benson explained. “They give their point of view on policies and tell us what activities they might like to have.”
Input from the youth council has been especially helpful in making Camp Beacon an accessible place for neurodiverse campers. “As a neurodiverse person, it was really important to me that camp be as neuro-inclusive and as accessible as we can make it,” she said.
That includes things like setting aside a quiet space where campers who get overstimulated can go to enjoy calming activities. They also provide alternatives to loud events like karaoke or dance parties, such as board games on the porch.
All the camp’s leadership and staff are unpaid volunteers, except the college-age youth counselors who receive a small stipend. As Camp Beacon continues to grow, Benson, Cleveland and the rest of their team are going to need all the help they can get.
“I would like to see more people sign up to volunteer,” she said. “What I would really like is to have more Berea alumni involved.”
Berea helped Benson become the leader that she is today—something that’s also true for many of her fellow alumni. “Lots of people at the school believed in me and my future as a leader,” she said, “and that’s really given me the confidence to go out in the world and create things where I see a need.”
Berea College taught her how to make a difference in the world and gave her the confidence to create exciting and ambitious projects like Camp Beacon. Now, she wants to pass on those values to the kids she works with.
“Berea tells us to take the values, the skills, everything that you learned at Berea and go make the world a better place,” she said. “Go be transformative in your own spaces. So, I’ve really tried to do that myself, and also to instill that in the young people that I mentor.”
