The reluctant camper

As a fourth grader, Cody Lopez ’16 decided not to sign up for camp at the W.E. Skelton 4-H Center, convinced none of his friends were going. When he learned he’d been wrong, the registration deadline had already slipped by.

“I became boy number 52 on the waiting list,” Lopez said, noting that he didn’t make the same mistake the following year. “When I was in fifth grade, I was one of the first to register.”

He hasn’t missed a year since.

“I moved from camper to counselor-in-training to staff member to adult volunteer,” Lopez said. “I’ll be traveling from Indiana back to Virginia this summer for camp, and my girlfriend’s kids, who have never been, will be making the trek with me.”

Lopez credits his camp experiences with shaping his lifelong interests, building confidence, and fostering a strong sense of responsibility and independence.

“Camp helped me find the direction for my life,” said Lopez, who enrolled at Virginia Tech after high school. “I had an interest in youth and relationship education, and camp was the perfect incubator for exploring and growing those skills.”

At Virginia Tech, Lopez joined the Collegiate 4-H Club, serving as president for two years and was the HokieBird from 2012-16. He also served as a Resident Assistant and got involved with the Student Hip-Hop Organization.

“My camping experiences helped me refine the skills I needed to make connections,” he said. “I learned to ask questions and to easily engage with people at all levels. Even as a student, I didn’t hesitate to network and pursue my interests.”

Establishing and serving for two years as the first president for the Virginia Tech chapter of College Mentors for Kids stands out as one such pursuit. The organization pairs college students with local children for one-on-one campus activities. After earning his degree in psychology, Lopez accepted a full-time position with College Mentors for Kids.

Today, he is the director of operations for a K–12 educational technology company in Indiana. On the side, he works as a DJ at school dances, weddings, parties, and other events — another skill he cultivated as a camper.

“Camp really helped make me the person that I am today,” he said. “I don’t know how to capture in words the transformative nature of those experiences.”