Tiny, Mighty and Strong connects rural kids to their purpose with a Good Neighbor grant
Like many of her friends in the Butte Valley area of northern California, Adriana Ramirez used to spend her summers indoors, taking care of her siblings while her hardworking parents spent long days doing farm work.
“Really, it sucked,” she says. “Because in the summers we would have to stay inside, and we didn’t have an opportunity to experience anything else.” When Ramirez turned 14, her sister took over the babysitting duties while Ramirez joined her parents in the fields, one of the few summer jobs available to teens.
All of that changed in 2019, during her senior year in high school, when an adult mentor encouraged her to apply for a student counselor position with Tiny, Mighty and Strong. TMS is a youth-focused program in the two-state Tule Lake Basin. Among a wealth of other opportunities, TMS operates a pair of monthlong K-6 day camps each summer, one for students in the Butte Valley Unified School District and one for students from Tulelake and Newell in California, as well as from the Oregon towns of Merrill and Malin.
Ramirez is now a third-year student at Sacramento State, but comes home every summer to work at camp, which her siblings also attend. “I know a lot of the kids’ parents are also labor workers, but with TMS, they get to experience different things and have a good memorable summer instead of just being at home,” she says.
Early years
Tiny, Mighty and Strong was founded in 2019 by Amy Frey, a native of Tulelake. Frey worked in the nonprofit sector in California for 13 years before coming home between jobs to help her brother, a fourth generation farmer.
She came back to a community in crisis. “There were two teenagers who tried to commit suicide, and one of them unfortunately did,” she says, “and I was seeing that the landscape of the community that didn’t resemble anything that I had grown up with.”
Frey began tackling the problem by doing a health equity survey and community forums in farming towns in the Butte Valley area, which straddles the California and Oregon border. She began building a program around the barriers that families identified: geographical location, time, finance and transportation.
Tiny Mighty and Strong began in 2019 with the summer camp program. “I was just amazed with how much families were receptive to support during the summer months,” Frey says. “That’s obviously the hardest time in our region, because agriculture is in full swing, and childcare is so limited and so is money.”
“I love seeing people like Amy return to the rural towns where they grew up and invest in kids so they too can thrive. It’s one of the best parts of my job,” says Levi Williams, program officer and lead for Good Neighbor grantmaking.
TMS established a model of operation that is in use today — hiring high school students to take a lead role in the organization’s activities, with the goals of building leadership skills and providing work experience.
“The education system is such a critical component of rural communities,” she says. “You need that strength in your academic pipeline.”
A survey at the end of that first summer found that area residents were strongly in favor of expanding the program to include after-school programs. Today, the organization does 21 to 28 weeks a year of after school programming, the summer camp programs, community connection events, and food distribution campaigns. Teen centers offer older students a safe space to connect.
With headquarters in the TMS Basin Youth Complex in Tulelake, the program serves communities in two states covering some 100 square miles. The target audience is from the Northern California and Southern Oregon towns of Dorris, Macdoel, Malin, Merrill, Newell and Tulelake.
“I love seeing people like Amy return to the rural towns where they grew up and invest in kids so they too can thrive. It’s one of the best parts of my job,” says Levi Williams, program officer and lead for Good Neighbor grantmaking.
“I remember meeting Amy back in 2018 and being impressed with her passion and vision for Tiny, Mighty and Strong. In those early years, we gave a grant to help them gain momentum. Then we were able to invest in the vision and rural kids with a larger, three-year grant. I’m thrilled to support TMS and the work they do to improve the lives of kids in Tulelake and surrounding areas.”
Core Values
The sounds of children at play echoes across the soccer field on the Oregon Institute of Technology campus. A senior TMS counselor swoops in as a fifth-grader sits on the ground in frustration. “What’s wrong, do you need to find some bravery?,” she asks, handing the child a yellow cord bracelet.
The core value bracelets are part of TMS’ strategy to address the whole child. Each color represents a core value of the program – safety, courage, love, empowerment and service. “What we really try to instill in anybody who comes into our programs is that you do have value, and you do have purpose. We are just really drilling down and getting to the core of what keeps our rural kids disenfranchised,” Frey explains. “We show them you can do anything with practice and hard work.”
TMS employs four full time staff, and hires up to four teens during the school year to help facilitate programs, with that number jumping to about 35 in the summer.
Ramirez credits the organization with giving her the confidence and leadership skills to pursue a college education, which she is attending as a Ford Scholar. She’s not alone – according to Frey, about 85% of the teens who have worked for TMS have gone on to college, with the other 15% choosing a trade. “It’s been really great to see the benefit come out of really building up the strengths of these young people in our region,” Frey says.
TMS is continually refining and developing its offerings to respond to community needs. This year, in response to the recent arrival of Hmong farmers near Dorris, California, participants can look forward to learning that culture’s dancing and traditions.
“We want them to have an understanding of different people that are coming into their community, and how we can honor them and their culture,” Frey says. “Because those people are now part of our community, and we want to embrace that.”