Project Appleseed

Our Libertyseed at Prepper Camp was a great success from beginning to end.  Prepper Camp is a 3-day total immersion event in preparedness, survival, camp craft, off grid living, and homesteading skills. The hosts, Rick and Jane, made it easy to find our booth spot and set up.  TazDevil, Cokeguy, and Mrs. Cokeguy met me at 3 on Thursday, making set up quick and easy.  TazDevil and I camped with several hundred other attendees, vendors, and speakers.  Podcasts were being recorded late into the night along with campfires surrounded by patriots and families from around the country that come to the campout for fellowship and learning.

We were up bright and early before the sun each day to set up the booth and fix whatever the wind damaged.  Thankfully, it was always minimal.  People began to arrive by 7am and meandered through the vendors every break they could until about 6:30pm.  Shortly before classes each day everything stopped as a veteran played our Star Spangled Banner on his trumpet.  It was moving to see roughly 2000 or more people turn and face the flag with their hands over their hearts.  The patriotic stance of a lot of the attendees seemed to line up perfectly with Appleseed's history lessons and the shooting program lined up with their desire to hone their skills.  Our map of previous shoots along with a detailed list by state helped show how active our program is - a huge thank you to Roswell and 6bones for making and printing the map!  Thanks to Mrs. Smith, Maximum Ordinate, and especially Scuzzy we had 25% off coupons to hand out.  Cokeguy was our designated social butterfly (in the best way).  He wandered through the campground inviting groups to our tent and telling them about our program.  His wife donned a blue hat supposedly for the wind and sun protection, but she talked about us just as much as any instructor could and was a huge asset.  TazDevil was a last-minute addition, and we were so happy to have him.  There were a lot of local people, and he was able to connect with plenty of South Carolinians to discuss their shoots.

All in all, Prepper Camp and Project Appleseed seem like a perfect fit.  We were able to tell plenty of history and demonstrate rifle positions.  There were a lot of kids, and they came back day after day for the mints and tattoos but stayed for DOM stories.  We made a lot of connections with groups interested in having us conduct Appleseeds.  We potentially found some long-range ranges.  People that had already attended Appleseeds seemed excited to get to another one and encouraged others to attend their first.  We found out that several podcasts had talked glowingly about us too, which is always great to hear.  I can't wait for next year!

Great job everyone! This sounds like a huge success! Well done Upacreek and everyone else!

It sounds like an amazing event!  I really like the map and hope it can be available for others.  Well done Roswell and 6Bones! 

What a treat to have CokeGuy and Mrs. CokeGuy come out and to have TazDevil make time to join you as a local contact.   

Kudos to upacreek for proposing to take on this event and then doing an outstanding job of organizing and executing her plan! This was my first time at Prepper Weekend, but I believe it offers a huge opportunity for Project Appleseed. It is a patriotic family-friendly event packed with folks of all ages eager to learn skills to help them be better prepared for any eventuality.

Opportunities to expand Appleseed further into South Carolina and to start in Mississippi were discussed with people there who want to help us do just that. I am sure Carol will elaborate. I think she should be invited to participate in the next AOC to give a full report and make a proposal for next year. We need to have at least 6 instructors there next year and, if she can get approval from the organizers, do a full Appleseed instructional course, without shooting, (multiple times) as part of the program. This was Carol's proposal for this year, but the organizers did not approve it, I believe only due to their lack of understanding of what we can do.

This event was attended by out "target audience". I think it would be time well spent in developing the program in the southeast...there were people there from most SE States.

Great job to all those involved.

Looks like a great event. I wish I could have attended as it looks like my kind of folks.
Great job Upacreek.

There is at least one Red Hat instructor and one shoot boss in Florida that originated through a 7th Stepping effort at a prepper fair/exhibition. Fertile hunting grounds.