The team built Ready2Respond around one hazard, one site and one set of partners in the mid-Willamette Valley. Within a month of camp, other regions were already part of the conversation. In the debrief with the site host, the camp director described what partners had raised: the National Guard had said it would support any region that wanted to run a camp the next year, and had suggested Camp Rilea for a North Coast and Portland-area camp. Partners in Southern Oregon had talked about White City, Eastern Oregon about a fairgrounds, and Central Oregon about a community college. None of those partners had committed. All of it suggests the model travels.
This collection is for the educator or coordinator who wants to bring it home. It covers what to keep and what to adapt, how to think about growth, how to tell when you are ready to set a date, and what to do in your first 90 days.
A region can change the hazard, the site, the trades and the size of the camp. The 2026 camp itself started somewhere else: its first design was for a coastal town facing a Cascadia earthquake. What a region should not change is the small set of things that made year one work: real work for real recipients, a simulated incident run under ICS, students in mixed teams, and a coalition in which each partner brings what it already does.
Keep | Adapt |
A product that goes to a real community need | What students build: sheds, shelters or another need your recovery agencies name |
A disaster scenario that frames every day | The hazard: earthquake, wildfire, flood, ice storm, tsunami |
ICS as the operating structure, with students in real roles | Which agency fills each command seat |
Villages by career focus, mixed across schools | Which tracks you offer; leaders suggested adding wildfire, forestry and public works |
An education sponsor that holds registration, hiring and supervision | An ESD, district, community college or other licensed entity |
Free to students; paid educators | Size, length and dates |
Counselors and a common language for stress | The curriculum provider |
A student communications team | Equipment and scale |
An honest after-action review | The format |
Why each core element matters
Real recipients. Builders worked until dark because the units were going to people who needed them. A birdhouse project would not have produced that week. The article “After camp: putting the footage to work” covers how to tell students where their work went.
A scenario that frames every day. Year one’s review found the scenario faded after day one, and students noticed. A region that keeps the scenario alive, with daily updates tied to that day’s activities, keeps the camp from becoming a series of workshops in tents.
ICS with students in it. The command structure is what lets a few hundred people work in one place without every question going to three leaders. It is also, for students, the lesson in how a real response runs.
Mixed teams. Students who arrived as strangers from different schools left as teams. That is the experience most adults described when asked what moved them.
A coalition, not a vendor list. Every 2026 partner contributed something it already does: the Guard and ODF staffed command, the human services agency’s emergency managers set up the camp as they would for a real disaster, the host opened its site, industry trained students. A region should recruit for the same fit.
Free to students. The camp’s coordinators were clear that it does not exist to make money, and that cost should never be the reason a student stays home.
Choose your hazard honestly. Pick the hazard your region actually faces and your agencies actually train for. Wildfire, flood and winter storm communities will find that their own emergency managers have the most relevant stories, and the most to gain from a cohort of trained young volunteers.