Erika Shapiro

Erika is responsible for creating and offering a summer day camp program on the church campus that exposes children to the love of the Lord through play, worship, service and fun. Camp Watermelon is a safe place to play and grow in the context of authentic relationship between campers and staff. The servant leadership development of the counselors is key to the success of Camp Watermelon, which means counselors take part in a monthly training during the spring to be ready to serve together in the summer. Each summer the camp focuses on a theme verse, and campers are encouraged to share what they learn each day by taking home their "mission project" to give to a friend or loved one. We also send the parents of the campers a daily debrief so that they are equipped to follow up at home with anything we are learning at camp. Erika can answer questions concerning summer camp programming and has a general knowledge of life at FPC due to involvement in the church as a member.

Originally from Memphis, Erika moved to Nashville with her college roommates after graduating from Rhodes College. By God’s grace, she got a job as the middle school youth director at FPC, and loved serving youth and families in that role for the next 8 years. During that time she met my husband, Jeremy, and they started their own family. While she was home with their 3 small children, she longed to be able to do youth ministry in a way that did not fully take her away from them but integrated them into the joy it is to have faithful teenagers involved in their lives. It is from that longing that God grew the story of Camp Watermelon, which began with 12 campers and 4 tween counselors in the summer of 2013 in their backyard. Now that their children, Isaac, Ada, and Gabe, are bigger, she teaches Pre-K through 2nd grade students Bible at school part time and spend the other part of my time cultivating Camp Watermelon Ministries at FPC, which in its current state, employees 60 staff and sees over 415 campers during four weeks of the summer.

Contact Erika via email by completing the form below or call 615-298-9541.