Camp Beacon is Kentucky’s first residential summer camp designed for and with LGBTQ youth ages twelve to seventeen. We offer a safe, fun, and affirming community while providing a typical camp experience that is financially accessible. Additionally, Camp Beacon conducts outreach to youth in rural Kentucky and partners with existing grassroots organizations to develop LGBTQ community year-round.
Sometime in 2021, co-founders Melissa Benson and Jess Cleveland had a phone conversation about LGBTQ+ summer camps. Melissa’s daughter had been looking for an affirming camp after having negative experiences at other camps as a lesbian. Jess was active in the Kentucky Mom Hugs chapter (which has since become Kentucky Embraces You), so Melissa reached out to her for resources. Unable to find a suitable option close to Kentucky, the two friends decided to create one. Thus Camp Beacon was born. Centering the values of inclusion, intersectionality, collaboration with youth, and financial accessibility they began gathering the right people together. The initial camp leadership team consisted of Medical Services Chair Vestena Robbins, Fundraising and Outreach Chair Shannon Ashley, and Mental Health professional Kyle May. It took two years of strategic planning, team building, fundraising, and project management before accepting its first cohort of campers in 2023. Jess served as the initial Director of camp as a proud ally and mother of a daughter in the LGBTQ+ community. She continues to support the camp through advocacy and fundraising while now full-time concentrating on housing issues in the state. Melissa served as the first Programming Chair and is now the Board President. In 2022, Andy Beshear awarded Jess and Melissa with the honorable title of Kentucky Colonel for co-founding Camp Beacon. In 2025, they accepted an award on behalf of the camp from the Kentucky Youth Law Project.
Hometown: Lexington
Jess brought a decade of experience in advocacy across Kentucky in the areas of housing, voting access, and LGBTQ+ rights. She spent years building relationships within the community. Along with her friend and co-founder, she recognized the need for a safe summer camp experience for LGBTQ+ youth in Kentucky. She brings a fierce spirit and empathetic heart to her advocacy and support. She believe that we have a duty to our young people to co-create with them a safe and equitable world and that starts right here in our own backyard of Kentucky. She is the mother of two incredible children and our sweet pup, Gizmo.
Fun fact: In her down time, she enjoys coffee with friends, hiking, camping, reading, S’mores and especially a competitive game of UNO.
Home Town: Nicholasville
About Me: Melissa brings to her work her lens as a cis female, bisexual, disabled, neurodivergent, rural woman. She is a project manager in the healthcare industry and doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky. Her research area is the reader response of young adolescents as they transact with multimodal texts. Melissa is a graduate of Berea College, University of the Cumberlands, and the University of Kentucky with degrees in art, education, and research. Sher brings many years of activism and volunteering experience across a variety of contexts. She is proud to have co-created the kind of space she did not have as a young person for future generations, but stresses that it took an entire team to make that happen. Melissa is a member of the 2025-2026 cohort for the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange and Kyndred Collective. She is also a published rural poet and loves spending time with her husband and daughter traveling, kayaking, and fishing.
Fun fact: She built and hosted one of the first Little Free Libraries in Kentucky.
Tena was an integral part of the design of Camp Beacon and served as the first Medical Services Chair. She has worked for over 30 years as a behavioral health services researcher, program evaluator, program administrator, policy advisor and executive advisor, specializing in services and supports to children, youth and young adults. She is a proud Appalachian native and currently live in Berea with my teen daughter, Saylour. She enjoys volunteering, reading, hiking, weightlifting and riding ATVs through the beautiful mountains of KY.
Fun Fact: She collects Pulitzer Prize fiction novels and writings by Appalachian authors.
Kyle was born in Pikeville, KY located in Eastern Kentucky, but now lives in Lexington, KY. He has been working as a therapist since 2011. Since the beginning of his career, he has provided mental health treatment for children and adolescents. He specializes in trauma therapy and uses evidence-based treatment models, such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT Certified) and Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP). Additionally, he is a Certified Financial Therapist™ Professional (CFT™). Kyle was instrumental in bringing a clinical lens to the policies of Camp Beacon. He has been faced with a variety of adversities throughout his life, many of which are directly, or indirectly, related to his identify as a gay man. This has inspired him to be a leader in the work of LGBTQ+ advocacy. One of his many accomplishments is that founding a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called the Big Sandy LGBT+ Safe Zone that serves LGBTQ+ people in Pike, Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin, and Martin counties in Eastern Kentucky. He also founded a counseling center known as Open Doors Counseling Center. He especially wants to reach rural communities where a huge gap exists for being able to find and access LGBTQ+ affirming and competent services. In 2024, he was appointed to be a Board Member of the Kentucky Board of Licensed Professional Counselors. Additionally, in the same year, Open Doors Counseling Center and Caritas Care Solutions merged to unite forces, to expand their reach, and to share resources. he is now the Chief Clinical Officer of Caritas Care Solutions, overseeing all of their clinical programming and services.
Fun fact: In his free time, he loves to listen to music, spend time in nature, hang out with friends, learn new things, and practice taking care of himself in a holistic way.
Shannon is originally from Pulaski County, Ky but has called Lexington home from the last 22 years. She was part of the initial camp leadership team serving in the position of Fundraising and Outreach Chair. Know by many as “Mama” Shannon. She is an advocate for LGBTQ rights, as well as a fierce defender of inclusion for all. Over the last seven years She has organized numerous events, fundraisers and drag shows that have raised thousands of dollars for charities not only in Kentucky, but nationally as well.
Fun Fact: Shannon is also the founder of the Kentucky LGBTQ+ Health & Wellness Fair, held annually in Lexington, KY. Shannon is also a photographer and the owner of “Shannon Ashley Photography”.
