Stories of Us: Camp Second Chance

Co-Hosted by Grace Church's Faith Formation and Outreach Ministries

Join us to watch the award-winning Stories of Us: Camp Second Chance; stay for a discussion with the filmmaker Melinda Raebyne.

View the trailer here.

In this powerful award winning film, director Melinda Raebyne embeds herself one winter at one of Seattle’s homeless camps, Camp Second Chance, challenging public ignorance and humanizing a population that locals would rather neglect, sharing with you some of their personal stories and her actual experience of what it’s like to be homeless. By putting faces to the statistics and a voice to their stories, she humanizes a population in ways that allow viewers to see themselves and better relate to a neglected and often “forgotten population.”

What’s possible when society’s “forgotten population” decides to beat the odds and instead of putting hope into a broken system invest their hopes in each other, using the pains of their past to be the fuel that drives them to create a better tomorrow. Camp Second Chance is an encampment founded by the homeless to foster an environment that allows them to become productive people in society. “Stories of Us” are their stories and ours, one of triumph, showing us that the power lies within our own willpower not to just survive but to thrive.

“Stories of Us” was awarded the Turner Legacy Award by Meaningful Movies Project in 2020 and the Audience Choice Award at the Tacoma Film Festival.

Melinda Raebyne is an award-winning filmmaker based in the US. As an independent filmmaker, Melinda works intentionally with communities to share local stories that have global resonance and impact. 

Her latest documentary, Ellos Gritan Libertad (They Scream Freedom) (2023) received the Best Documentary Director award (International category) at the 2023 Social World Film Festival in Italy, The Award Winning Film at the Free Speech Film Festival in Philadelphia (2023) and Best PNW Documentary at the Tacoma Film Festival (2023). Other award-winning projects include Stories of Us: Camp Second Chance (2019), and Asylum (2016). An advocate for independent filmmaking, she is affiliated with the Meaningful Movies Project, Washington Filmworks, and the Seattle Latino Film Festival. Melinda is a Firelight Media Spark Fund grant recipient and was in the leadership cohort of the Jane’s Fellowship Program, a program of the Russell Family Foundation. Recently, Melinda completed the highly competitive Washington FIlmworks Above the Line Program for emerging BIPOC filmmakers.

You can learn more about Melinda Raebyne’s films on her website.

All are welcome! Youth are warmly encouraged to attend.