Photo By Preston L. Morris | Marines with 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, and a U.S....... read more read more
The Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) program broke ground on Camp Kamassa in 2018 and has continued to support the camp’s efforts.
This year, the camp finally celebrated its grand opening.
Over the past seven years, thousands of joint service members from across the U.S. have provided no-cost labor to the camp, saving the community partner, Mississippi’s Toughest Kids Foundation, millions of dollars in fair-market value services. In return, the participants gained valuable real-world deployment readiness training that they might not have received at their home stations.
“If you talk to fundraisers, they will tell you that if you're going to start a big capital campaign, you need to have that one big donor, that one big gift, that one big something For us, that one big something was Innovative Readiness Training,” said Tanya Mohawk, Camp Kamassa executive director. “I don't know if we would have even started by now, had it not been for Innovative Readiness Training.”
The camp staff invited COL Stephen Rubright, IRT deputy director, to speak at the grand opening event.
“Thank you to all of the military members who have worked on this camp,” said COL Rubright. “I feel really privileged to be here for the grand opening and to see the finished product, but I know that there were thousands of military members out here when it was just trees.”
In fact, those trees were the starting point for IRT’s efforts.
“First, they cleared about 60 acres of pine trees,” Mohwak explained. “Then they helped lay a lot of the initial site utilities, including storm drains. Additionally, they constructed most of the cabins that you see, especially the eight cabins in the center of the campus. They built some of our sidewalks and erected the red steel for our activity building.”
Mohawk said the dozens of units that provided support became family.
“Every summer, they've all come to this little town in Mississippi to help build this fantastic place for kids and adults with special needs from Mississippi and surrounding states,” Mohawk added.
Their efforts contributed to the IRT program’s vision of a secure and prosperous America supported by strong civil-military relations.
“It's a really great opportunity for units to get the training here in the U.S. on tasks that they're going to need to do when they're deployed,” Rubright said. “The end product goes directly to an American community, so it's just a real win-win.”
He added that he suspects it will not be his last trip to the camp.
“I hope I can come back to just see the excitement and the looks on the faces of the kids and adults that are going to be able to use some of the facilities,” Rubright said.
| Date Taken: | 04.04.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.15.2025 12:19 |
| Story ID: | 498063 |
| Location: | CRYSTAL SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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