Friends of CLN Board of Directors
Jo Lum, President
Lindsay Farrar, Vice President
Shayden Gonzalez, Secretary
Amy Hopkins, Director at Large
Jim Paley, Director at Large
Cathy Painter-Daukas, Director at Large
Karen Obertubbesing, Director at Large
Jo Lum has been involved with Camp Little Notch as both a youth and adult since 1995. In 2006 Jo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts, located in New York City and then went on to pursue a specialized degree in American Sign Language Interpreting at Saint Paul Community & Technical College in Saint Paul Minnesota graduating in 2010. Throughout the years, Jo has worked for various organizations dedicated to youth programming including Girl Scouts, Oasis Children’s Services, the American Sign Language and English School, Windsor Mountain International Summer Camp, Gideon Pond Preschool, Camp Fire USA, the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Austine School for the Deaf. Jo currently divides time working toward National Interpreter Certification while freelancing as an ASL Interpreter in the Capitol Region, volunteering with this organization, learning more about their own privilege and how to best navigate and lovingly resist a societal structure ridden with racism, classism, ableism and transphobia, and spending as much time as possible with loved ones celebrating and sharing the immense light of this world. Jo is the spearhead behind this organization, the founding board president of Friends of Camp Little Notch.
Lindsay Farrar is a Glens Falls, NY native who is currently residing in Albany, NY where she enjoys gardening and playing kickball in the park with her friends and neighbors. Lindsay attended Camp Little Notch as a camper starting at age eight, continued through the CIT program in 1999, and was first employed as the nature specialist working in the Wolery in 2000. In 2001, Lindsay earned her Gold Award and returned to CLN for the next four summers as a unit counselor and unit leader. In 2006 and 2007, Lindsay was part of the administrative team at a Girl Scout camp in southeastern Pennsylvania and was responsible for environmental education programming and counselor wellness.
Lindsay graduated from Saint Lawrence University in 2005 and obtained her Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling from The College of Saint Rose in 2007. Currently a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with an expertise in treating psychological trauma, Lindsay operates a limited private practice in Lake George, NY. She also provides counseling in Spanish and English to men, women, and children survivors of domestic violence at a large urban community service agency.
Shayden Gonzalez holds a BA from Eugene Lang College in NYC where he doubled in Psychology and Writing. During that time he interned with various local community organizations and was an active member and event organizer for the groups Moxie (a feminist org. at the New School), D.E.M.T (an org. created to dispel myths around lesbians), and DATfree. Following undergrad., Shayden spent 4 years working with Streetwork Project where he provided HIV testing, case management, counseling, and sexual health education for homeless and transient youth in Manhattan. Additionally, he actively developed groups and workshops with and for young people around gender, race, power, consent, class and how they relate to sex, sexuality, and sexual orientation. While there he was a part of the PROSNetwork and the NYS Transgender Committee.
Most recently, Shayden has worked with what was one of the only national LBTQ youth advocacy organizations (NYAC) and trained providers to work more effectively with queer and trans youth, while also providing empowerment and movement training for youth. His specialties are social marketing, social media, creating healthy youth/adult partnerships, and group facilitation. Currently, he is doing national consultant work providing capacity building assistance training for non/not-for profit organizations. Shayden has been a part of both the Center for Progressive Leadership and Brown Boi Project Leadership trainings, is a self-identified nerd and likes to spend his time adventuring, biking, baking, crafting, listening to music, reading theory and/or graphic novels, thinking up new gender neutral pronouns, writing, and fixing computers when the situation arises. You can also call him shay, which is always written in lowercase.
Amy Hopkins currently works as a physical education teacher at Austine School for the Deaf in Brattleboro, VT. After completing a full-time academic and experiential outdoor leadership degree at Greenfield Community College, including five 5-10 day wilderness trips, she began working at Austine School first as a one-on-one paraprofessional with students with multiple disabilities. She has spent the last three years extremely active in the Deaf Outdoor Leadership Program of Massachusetts State Association of the Deaf creating opportunities for deaf youth to engage in community building through activities that develop key skills enabling them to become conscientious members of their community.
Amy is very excited about the possibilities of Little Notch. She is well connected in the Deaf Camping Communities in the Northeast and has many ideas about piloting an experiential Deaf Youth Backpacking/Camping Leadership Program in an inclusive and integrated outdoor settings. Amy is a native speaker of American Sign Language and extremely knowledgeable about Deaf culture and inclusivity for the Deaf.
Jim Paley has been Senior Vice President/Investments at Janney Montgomery Scott and has over 30 years experience as a financial advisor. Currently he serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the George Landis Arboretum. Formerly he served as member of the Board of Directors of the Hudson Valley Girl Scout council for twelve years and trustee of the Hudson Valley Girl Scout council Witte Trust for fifteen years, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Albany County Historical Society.
Jim truly cares what happens to Little Notch. As a Trustee of the Witte Trust he was involved in supervising the Trust that helped fund the camp’s operation. For close to 20 years he has been coming to Little Notch and for the last 15 years he has paid special attention to help direct the necessary monies to keep Little Notch the special place that it is.
Cathy Painter-Daukas grew up in Connecticut and Rhode Island where she was a Brownie and Girl Scout and attended scout camp several summers. She moved to Upstate New York from Colorado to marry George Painter in 1989 and ended up tying a knot with Camp Chingachgook as well. Cathy and George have two children in college. The Painter family is fortunate to live at the Y Camp on Lake George where they spend as much time as they can on or in the lake and in the mountains.
Karen Obertubbesing has been involved with Camp Little Notch since 2003. She is currently a senior at Clayton A. Bouton Junior/Senior High School in Voorheesville, New York. At school, she has been a part of student government as a class representative since the eighth grade. In middle school, Karen and six classmates formed a Voorheesville chapter of Roots and Shoots, a global organization in which youth plan, organize, and lead projects to help the local and global community, wildlife, and the environment. As a part of this ongoing project, she helped her Roots and Shoots group become the youngest group to receive a grant from Youth Venture, part of the Do Something campaign. Karen has had unique educational experiences, including an Eyewitness Delegation trip to Nicaragua in which she studied fairtrade, the global economy, and social justice alongside other students and educators. As a senior, she is the treasurer of the Clayton A. Bouton High School chapter of National Honor Society and she is a teacher’s assistant in an AP World History class.
Karen has been an active member of Camper Voice, the committee of young people involved in the mission of Friends of Camp Little Notch. In addition, she spent the summer of 2011 as a volunteer coordinator at Camp Little Notch, donating her time to ready the property for future use. She is very excited to be a part of Friends of CLN’s mission and is looking forward to working on this project for many years!