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Local Survival Camp For Kids

Posted: 5:25 PM Jul 20, 2012
Reporter: Terri Russell

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RENO, NV - Carrie Ortiz keeps a picture of her son Maison close to her heart.

In this case on a lanyard that also carries her name while she volunteers at the Outdoor Skills Camp this weekend off of Winnemucca Ranch Road.

“Everything. This camp is everything that Maison loved, our state, everything about the outdoors,” says Ortiz and her husband Tom when asked what their son would like best about the camp.

Maison died in January 2011 in a snow boarding accident.

But from tragedy has come an event that epitomizes his spirit and love of nature.

This place is a 5,000 acre ranch where kids from all over Northern Nevada will come to take part in a camp that will teach them everything from fishing, gun safety, even archery.

“You need strength to pull this bow,” says Kelsey Hilderbran as she shows us a bow at the camp.

Hilderbran came last year for the maiden Maison Ortiz Youth Outdoor Skills Camp.

“It was a very life changing experience,” she says.

And that's the goal.

With the help of dozens and dozens of volunteers the 48 campers both girls and boys will hopefully experience the outdoors as they have never before.

Mentors and other outdoor experts will be here all weekend long to encourage them to learn about conservation, hunting, compass reading and even knot tying.

16 year old Joe Staniszewski and his 15 year old brother Tony are busy packing for the trip.

They have a list of items to take with them and say while they've been camping before--its never been like this.

“I would like to get more outdoor skills in survival sort of things out of it,” says Joe.

“ I would like to be able to get out of it how to shoot a gun bow and arrow and stuff like that,” says Tony.

Kids applied to be part of the outdoor skills camp.

The program is free and is made possible by the Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, Northern Nevada Safari Club International and the Rotary Club of Sparks..