Jessica and I are here at the American Humanist Association Conference and we are here with David

Diskin and he is with Camp Quest.

So can you tell us a little bit about what you do with Camp Quest?

Yeah, I'm the president of Camp Quest West in

California and Camp Quest is a network of summer camps.

Design for secular families all throughout the United States.

We've got about 14 different locations.

The closest one here in Chicago is just over

on the other side of the lake in Michigan.

But we spend a week with kids talking about science and the great outdoors about humanism, about empathy and leadership skills, about socioeconomic issues, about positive sexuality for the older kids,

all kinds of stuff.

It is a blast.

So what was the impetus to start this?

Was it because there's a lot of religious

camp summer camps all over the place and you wanted to have something that's secular

or exactly yeah this started 20 years ago and we wanted something for ourselves we

wanted a place that we could send kids that they knew that they wouldn't get proselytized to, that they knew that they would get quality science education in some cases better than what we see in public schools.

We wanted to make sure that they knew that they could go somewhere without being bullied

for who they are, and not just for religious reasons, but for their economic background or how they dress or their sexuality or identity anything along those lines.

We're a very welcoming open camp.

One of the criticisms that I hear from the media anyway when they talk about Camp quest is this is an atheist camp.

Yeah, like we're the opposite of Jesus camp.

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