After five days of rappelling down buildings, fingerprinting “suspects,” climbing up ladders and negotiating with “shooters,” 31 teen-age girls celebrated their graduation from Camp Fury on Saturday.
Now in its seventh year, the Girl Scouts’ real-world training camp offers 14- to 18-year-old girls a hands-on opportunity to experience aspects of a career in law enforcement.
Women who work for law enforcement agencies statewide provided instruction throughout the week, with returning campers acting as squad leaders for the largest group of girls the organizers have hosted.
“It keeps getting better and better,” said Tucson Fire Department’s Assistant Chief Laura Baker, one of the founders of Camp Fury. “It’s really grown to an amazing place.”
Instructors from more than a dozen agencies taught campers skills used by police officers, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, paramedics and border agents.
Over the years, Camp Fury has inspired Girl Scout groups across the country to create similar camps of their own, Baker said.
Assistant Chiefs Deanna Cantrell from Mesa Police Department and Mary Cameli from the Mesa Fire Department traveled to Tucson to take part as instructors but also to learn more about the camp, as Phoenix is hoping to start similar programs.
“The instructors really get into the activities with the girls,” said co-founder and Northwest Fire Division Chief Cheryl Horvath. “Many of them don’t have any experience with teenage girls either, so it’s fun for them.”
For the camp’s last training exercise, the girls acted as police and paramedics as they responded to an active-shooter scenario, with instructors acting as the suspects and victims.
After the activity, the whole group gathered in a meeting hall to hold a debriefing of the week.
“You girls are so, so lucky to get to do this at your age,” Cameli said. “You have a gold mine here, with all the different women in different ranks and branches.”
Cantrell told the campers that they started off well and improved throughout the week.
The meeting became emotional when campers and instructors started sharing important moments from the week and even gave a standing ovation to a girl who had struggled at the beginning and came out of her shell as the week progressed.
“To look at the future of where you all can be is amazing,” Baker told the girls.
Seventeen-year-old Kayla Justesen, a squad leader who was at camp for the third year in a row, said she hopes to return next year.
“I really like the firefighter aspect of it,” she said. “And I’ve never rappelled off a building before.”
Jillian Geiser, 13, was participating for the first time and also said she wants to come back.
“I’m debating between being a firefighter or a police officer,” she said. “With both, I know I’m helping people.”
Sixteen-year-old Katherine Abughazaleh, also attending for the first time, said she really enjoyed the aerial climb and blind search and rescue, but also liked working together as a team.
“It was very empowering,” she said. “Lots of girls confronted their fears, and it was kind of cool to help each other out.”
Abughazaleh hopes to attend West Point or the Air Force Academy when she graduates from high school — after she returns to Camp Fury next year.
“We all did this, and if it was easy, everyone would do it,” Horvath said to the group. “Everyone here has the heart to do it.”
