Campfire Success Story

Meet Tyrique Revere.

As a boy, Tyrique faced great difficulties when his father faced a lengthy prison sentence. Tyrique was only 8. As a third grader at Hope-Hill Elementary School in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward (before gentrification), Tyrique had the good fortune to find Wilderness Works with its frequent weekend programming and great summer experiences.

“In retrospect Wilderness Works presented me with a safe place to go, filled with positive and energetic leaders. A second home” says Tyrique. “My grandmother was now raising me and she felt safe with Wilderness Works and was I glad!”.  Tyrique rarely missed a weekend with Wilderness Works and that has been ongoing for the past 12 years!

Tyrique started with Wilderness Works as a weekend City Camper, enjoying organized weekend activities. He attended the 4th Friday series, introducing him to still more Wilderness Works programs. Later in 2015, Tyrique got to go to summer camp for the first time in his life at Camp Evergreen where he experienced canoeing, rock climbing and summer camp fellowship.
Those skills would serve Tyrique and his fellow Core Campers as they all moved up the Wilderness Works Program Pyramid. Soon, Tyrique and his buddies were boarding a plane (Tyrique’s first flight) to Chicago and Duluth and the Boundary Waters in Minnesota! Tyrique enjoyed an epic Wilderness Works canoeing journey covering 30 miles in windy waters and the chance to actually reach the shores of Canada! 

Tyrique and his peers enjoyed numerous epic trips and treks in the Wilderness Works Field Camp program. He often recalls his favorite tour that presented a wide range of experience, everything from deep backcountry camping in Olympic National Park’s Hoh Rainforest to whale watching off Washington’s Port Angeles and beyond. This trip took Tyrique and friends to Mount Hood, Lava Fields in Oregon and a visit to incredible Crater Lake National Park. As if these discoveries were not enough, this trip continued to the giant trees of Redwood National Park. 

Tyrique in Olympic National

Crater Lake, OR

Since these amazing journeys, Tyrique has been close to Wilderness Works and the programs that he received so much from. Pursuing his passion for cooking and culinary education, he worked for 3 years in a restaurant learning the trade. But when the restaurant closed, Tyrique saw his chance to pay back/forward the gifts from Wilderness Works and joined the staff as the Children’s Program Coordinator in January of 2025.

Tyrique admits that when he arrived at Wilderness Works those many years ago, he desperately needed a positive alternative. Today, as Tyrique develops programs, he sees his younger self in current campers and is quick to lift up those young people in the way he was lifted.

We are grateful to have seen Tyrique blossom into the man he has become and excited about the contributions he will undoubtedly make in the future.