Sky Mitchell

My name is Sky Mitchell, and I am the Founder and CEO of two companies I built from the ground up: Basecamp Resorts and Everwild Nordic Spas & Hotels. Creating these businesses, spaces where people can truly disconnect, reconnect with nature, and feel part of something meaningful, has been the greatest professional accomplishment of my life.

But more than the titles or the companies, what means the most to me is the community I have built around them. The people, the culture, and the sense of belonging that guests and team members feel when they walk through our doors are what I consider the real measure of success.

And I will say this honestly: I don’t think any of it would have been possible without Camp Oconto. Camp shaped me in ways I am still discovering.

When I think back to Oconto, sailing was my world. There was something magical about being out on the water, with the sun on my face and my best friends crammed into a Laser, all of us laughing, scrambling, and figuring it out together. Those moments felt completely free in a way that is hard to describe.

What started as pure joy eventually became something more. I worked my way up to Head of Sailing one summer, and getting to run that program, being responsible for it and sharing my love of the water with other campers, was one of the proudest experiences of my life. The lake, the sailboats, and the friendships built out there will always be my special place.

One of the most transformative things camp gave me was the ability to stand up in front of people and speak. As a young woman, speaking in front of a crowd was terrifying. I worried about making mistakes, being judged, or not having the right words. But Camp gave me safe, repeated opportunities to push through that fear: as Head of Sailing, speaking at chapel on Sunday evenings, and in so many other moments where I had to show up, be present, and use my voice.

Sunday Evening Concerts were especially important to me. There was something about that community, campers and staff all together, supportive and warm, that made it feel safe to be imperfect. I learned that mistakes were part of the process. You showed up anyway.

As a founder and CEO, I speak constantly now: to investors, teams, guests, and the media. The confidence I built at camp is the foundation of so much of what I do professionally. I genuinely believe that if I had not been given those early opportunities to find my voice at Oconto, I would not have had the courage to stand up and pitch my vision for Basecamp Resorts or Everwild. Camp did not just teach me to speak. It taught me to believe that what I had to say was worth hearing.

Camp also shaped my understanding of community in a profound way. It showed me what a true community feels like: everyone contributing, everyone belonging, and everyone looking out for one another. The people you surround yourself with become a reflection of who you are and who you are becoming. I learned that at camp, and it has stayed with me every day since.

When I look at what I have built with Basecamp Resorts and Everwild, I see Camp Oconto’s fingerprints everywhere. I did not just want to build businesses. I wanted to build communities, places where people genuinely feel that they belong. That instinct came directly from my years at Oconto. Camp was my first real experience of what it feels like to be part of something bigger than yourself, and I have been chasing that feeling ever since, while trying to create it for others.

At camp, everything felt possible. You could try something you had never done before. You could be a little braver and a little bolder than you were at home. The city has a way of narrowing us into routines, expectations, and versions of ourselves that other people may have already decided we are. Camp erased that.

At Oconto, it did not matter what your background was, what school you went to, or what you looked like. What mattered was showing up and giving it a go. That spirit of openness, the permission to try, fail, and try again, was something I had never experienced anywhere else. It set a standard for how I try to live and lead today.

I believe it is incredibly important for young women to have access to Camp Oconto because the world still needs more women who know, deeply and unshakeably, that they can do anything. That belief, that true sense of self, does not come from a classroom or a scroll through social media. It comes from experience. It comes from standing at the bow of a sailboat and realizing you know how to steer it. It comes from standing in front of your peers and finding your voice. It comes from being seen and celebrated exactly as you are.

Camp Oconto gives girls that experience. It gives them confidence that is not borrowed from anyone else. It is earned, it is real, and it lasts a lifetime. I want every girl who could benefit from that to have the chance to feel it. We cannot afford to let access to this kind of transformative experience be limited by financial barriers. The girls who need camp the most may be the ones who are least able to get there without our help.

A donor to the Ripple Effect Capital Campaign is not just writing a cheque. They are changing the trajectory of a young woman’s life. They are saying: your story matters, your potential matters, and you deserve this experience. They are making it possible for a girl to go to camp who otherwise might never have had that chance, and then watching the ripple effects of that moment spread outward for decades.

I am living proof of those ripple effects. The confidence I found at Camp Oconto rippled into a career, into two companies, and into a community I built for others. A donor to this campaign is investing in the next generation of women who will lead, who will build, and who will inspire. That is not a small thing. That is everything.