Lamplight is a free three week summer program located in rural northern Alabama where teens practice leadership and service by running the camp themselves and doing projects for their community. Along the way, campers learn real-world skills and how to live together as a community. This unique program is rooted by a strong sense of place and is inspired by the educational ideas of L.L. Nunn, founder of Deep Springs College and the Telluride Association, as well as by the radical folk school model of the Highlander Folk School. In addition to the summer program, Lamplight is part of the Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center (SMCEC), which promotes cooperative models of education and economic life. On this episode of podcast, founding camper and current staff member Kayleigh Johnson and returning staff member Julia Machlin give us the scoop.

Lamplight: https://www.lamplightsummer.org/

Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center: https://www.coopeducation.org/

Thoreau College: https://thoreaucollege.org/

Our Guests:

Kayleigh Johnson is from the small town of Douglas, Alabama, located within Marshall County. When she was twelve, she became involved with Lamplight as part of their very first group of campers. Throughout the years Kayleigh has become more involved with Lamplight and is now a staff member. Outside of Lamplight, Kayleigh is working towards her general business degree as a freshman at the University of Alabama, where she later hopes to continue on to law school. Kayleigh aspires to combine everything Lamplight and college will teach her, into a career as a non-profit lawyer who stands up for worker-owners everywhere. This aspiration stems from working with SMCEC and other non-profits in contact with SMCEC. One of her favorite memories from Lamplight was in her last year as a camper when her and two other campers plus one staff conspired to purchase the staircase and charge everyone a toll to use it during the real-world simulation experiment.

Julia Machlin hails from Ithaca, the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, where she first developed a passion for student led education. After completing undergrad, she found herself toggling between working in education and the Labor Movement, including teaching Social Studies in East Harlem, and working with various workers centers, and SEIU in hopes to find a marriage between two worlds working towards student and worker empowerment. It wasn't until she found Lamplight and the work of the Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center (SMCEC) where she discovered a niche and intersection of people trying to solve similar problems. For the last four years, Julia has been a returning Lamplight Staff member, and now sits on the board of SMCEC. She is also one of the creators on Glow and Grow, a coopertivelt structured fundraising program that grants writes for burgeoning nonprofits in Alabama, and trains students to simultaneously be worker owners and grant writers. Some of her favorite SMCEC memories include getting Frank Hurricane to perform at the 2025 Brick and Barn Conference, and holding fundraisers in her friend's Brooklyn Bars. When she isn't in Alabama or Ithaca, Julia can be spotted in New York, completing her Masters in Education at Teachers College at Columbia University. She looks forward to a future of building worker power by way of empowering students in and out of the classroom.