The conversation that finally brought Knoxville Girls Rock Camp back wasn’t about music. It was about a storage unit.
For years, Mabry-Hazen House had generously partnered with the camp by providing storage space for its instruments and equipment. When that space was eventually needed for the museum’s own programming, everything moved into a storage unit.
As the hiatus stretched into its sixth year, the money to keep paying for that storage unit finally ran out.
“We had to decide if we could bring camp back or disband it,” core coordinator Elizabeth Wright told me.
“The former campers who had gone through our leadership program and are now in their late teens and early twenties were adamant that we should bring camp back and they wanted to help.”
That answer says almost everything about why Knoxville Girls Rock Camp still matters.
The weeklong camp, a program of KnowHow Knoxville, gives girls, transgender and nonbinary youth ages 9 to 17 the chance to form bands, learn instruments, write original songs and perform a showcase together. At its core, it’s a place where campers learn that making music isn’t reserved for somebody else. It’s for them, too.
Like many all-volunteer organizations, Girls Rock Camp lost momentum during the pandemic. Running camp meant taking vacation time from work, recruiting volunteers, fundraising, coordinating instruments and carrying an enormous amount of responsibility year after year. The hiatus stretched longer than anyone expected.
Still, no one seemed ready to let it disappear.
Wright has been a part of Girls Rock Camp since its earliest Birdhouse workshops. She’s watched campers become volunteers, volunteers become coordinators, and now, over half of the camp’s leadership team are former campers.
Sri Sheffield is one of them. Sri remembers attending one of the first events at the Birdhouse, getting her face painted, and discovering she wanted to play bass. Later, Wright let her borrow a bass to practice at home. A few months afterward, Sri’s dad surprised her with one of her own for Christmas, and she went home and learned “Fever” by The Black Keys.
Years later, she still calls that bass one of her most treasured possessions.
Delia Gentry’s story followed a similar path. She attended Girls Rock Camp as a camper, and now, after the six-year hiatus, she’s one of the coordinators helping lead it.
Delia’s mother, Stephanie Holley, decided to volunteer at the camp when she registered Delia for camp.
When Stephanie was 12, her uncle took her to a record shop in Nashville to see Bikini Kill.
She remembers looking at the stage and realizing something she hadn’t quite believed before. “I could do that.”
Almost immediately, another thought followed.
“But I also remember being like, ‘I don’t know if I want everyone to see me mess up.’”
Then she watched Delia learn drums through Girls Rock Camp.
“I mean, it was kind of like if she can do it, I probably can,” Stephanie said. So she picked up a bass and started learning to play.
The pattern is impossible to miss.
The camp creates a cycle of learning from one another. Sometimes the teacher is older. Sometimes the student grows up and becomes the teacher. Sometimes, as Stephanie discovered, your own child gives you permission to begin.
As I met more of the Girls Rock Camp team, I realized I’d heard different versions of that same story again and again. One person shows another what’s possible, and eventually the roles reverse.
That idea reaches far beyond Knoxville.
Maggie Vail has spent 32 years as a touring musician and independent label worker and is currently CEO of Bikini Kill Records. I asked Maggie about the importance of camps like this.
“Music programs have disappeared from many public schools,” she said, “making community programs even more important.”
“They are learning about collaboration, community, patience, and gaining confidence. It is really empowering to be in a space together with other people interested in the same thing you are. We also still live in a world that makes it harder for girls, transgender kids, and nonbinary kids to have safe spaces and to be taught without prejudice and with care.”
Knoxville Girls Rock Camp returns July 27 through 31, culminating in a showcase Aug. 1 at 4:30 p.m. at Jig & Reel. Before then, a benefit show this Sunday, June 28, at Pilot Light will help raise money to support the camp’s return.
For years, volunteers figured out how to pay to store a room full of instruments while hoping there would someday be another generation of campers to use them.
It turns out they weren’t just storing handmade zines and patches or guitars, drum kits and amplifiers. They were storing potential.
Another room full of young people will pick up instruments this summer. Some of them may never play again.
Some will.
Some may come back years from now to teach another kid their first chord, lend them an instrument to take home or loudly become the reason someone else decides, “Maybe I can do that, too.”
Registration for this summer’s camp has closed, but there are still ways to get involved!
Sunday, June 28: Knoxville Girls Rock Camp Benefit at Pilot Light (106 E Jackson Ave.) from 2-5 p.m. Artists include: Starting September, Josi J and Dessert, Kelley Anderson, Delilah Needham, Naomi & Novalee, and Dirty Knees. The cost is $10 at the door and free for youth 10 and under.
Saturday, August 1: Knoxville Girls Rock Camp Showcase at Pilot Light!
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