Growing up, River Lewis was one of six siblings raised by a single mother who never let that get in the way of helping others, and who passed that approach to life on to him.

As part of that outlook on life, Lewis has sponsored a summer camp, Operation Exposure, that will be making its fifth trip in July. The camp brings boys from low income areas in cities such as Charlotte, Atlanta and Salisbury to a Boy Scout Camp near New London where Lewis gets them out of their comfort area and teaches them to be more confident in themselves.

Despite raising six children, his mother still found time to volunteer and help others. As an example, Lewis said she dragged him out to help at the soup kitchen multiple times when he was nine and 10.

“There was this one time, mom also let this young woman who was struggling and who had no place to stay during Thanksgiving and Christmas come stay at our house. I’d never seen something like that before,” said Lewis.

His grandmother, Aggie Harrington, is a retired Salisbury High School teacher who took the time out of her own life and money out of her own pocket to feed five other families in the area who were in need.

“She was from Whiteville, so we would drive down there once every year, and during the drive we would have the best conversations about life. And this one particular time, she said something very profound to me. She said, ‘God doesn’t always have time to be here, so he blesses everyone by sending them people who can help,'” said Lewis.

Lewis attributes his own compassion and drive to help others to charitable acts such as these, and his grandmother and mother’s attitude towards helping others. This upbringing is what led him to start his own non-profit, Hope 4U, which Operation Exposure is a part of.

Lewis said when he first went to the Boy Scout Camp, Camp Barnhardt, when he was 13, his family did not have enough money to afford to pay for his trip, so an anonymous donation from a member of their church paid for Lewis to attend the camp. He says the way the camp exposed him to things he had never experienced before changed his outlook on life.

“I saw how this one week of summer camp changed my life, and I wanted to be able to share that and have that for others,” said Lewis.

The theme for his summer camp this year will be focusing on rites of passage to manhood. Lewis says the camp will center around teaching the boys about how to become confident in themselves as they mature into adulthood. Lewis is also excited about this year because his first group from 2016 has now grown to be seniors in high school, so he is planning to bring them all back to Camp Barnhardt to help as camp counselors.

“I was able to start this camp because of the help I got at Morehouse, so being able to have these men back is amazing, because it shows the impact of what we’ve done,” said Lewis.

When Lewis speaks of Morehouse, he is speaking of Morehouse College in Atlanta where he got his sociology degree in 2018. While at Morehouse, his senior capstone project was on the effect of summer camps on the self-image of children from lower-income backgrounds. Lewis also received the Franklin E. Frazier award from the sociology department, which is an award given to an outstanding graduate student for exemplary community service and civic engagement.

This year’s Operation Exposure will be the fifth consecutive year that Lewis has put together the summer camp. The camp will run from July 14 to July 20 and Lewis hopes to have eight boys between the ages of 10 and 13 join the group this year.

Lewis mainly does his fundraising through word of mouth, posting his GoFundMe and story to his Instagram and Facebook page and letting it naturally spread through others. He has not raised the amount he needs for this year’s summer camp, but he says he is not worried about not raising enough money because “things are going to happen how they need to happen.”

“When I think about growing up, the biggest thing I needed at that time was a big brother. Someone who was mentally, spiritually, and physically there for me,” said Lewis.

For more information or to donate to Lewis’ organization, go to www.operationexposure.org.