Last month, I had the exceptional privilege of being part of CoMo Girls Rock, a music camp for girls and gender non-conforming youth. It’s an amazing camp, and I’d wanted to be part of it in the past, but I never had time. And, well, I didn’t have time this year either (look at me; it’s a month later, and I’m just now writing this post), but this was my very last summer in Columbia, so I did it anyway. “I thought you were going to have a low-key summer,” Brad says. “Shh,” I say.

I applied to be a volunteer back in April, and someone immediately reached out to me and asked me to help out as the PR woman. This meant I got to send out press releases, attend camp organizer meetings, promote the camp and post to the CoMo Girls Rock Facebook page. I also signed on to take photos at the camp. Now, I’m not a professional photographer (or even a particularly good one), so my goal was more to capture moments in time than create beautiful images. I was on a hunt for smiles, and I think I did an okay job.

What you can’t see from any of the pictures I took was how giant my smile was on the other side of the camera. I’ll be honest, I almost always tear up whenever I hear live music. I don’t know why. It’s always just very raw and emotional for me to hear someone being vulnerable in that way, so music and a little welling of the eyes are quite synonymous for me. So, with that in mind, imagine me wandering around a camp watching girls 12-18 singing songs they wrote with their friends about heartbreak, bravery, love, fear and girl power.

I was a mess. But I didn’t want these girls to go home to their parents and say, “Yeah, camp was pretty cool, but the photographer kept crying and saying, ‘You’re a star!”’, so I tried to keep a low profile. But these girls were straight-up rock stars. The band names were: The Frost Bandits, The Heart-Shaped Tree, F-Bomb, The Deadly Dollface Disciples, The Flying Amps and The Soft Jems. And every single band had something so special and amazing and wonderful that it almost hurt your eyes to look at it.

The Frost Bandits were the youngest band at camp, but their creative direction was really present from day one. They jumped right into the songwriting process and had strong visions and ideas. The drummer for the band even took inspiration from the “Laser Radiation” warning signs in the career center’s Laser Room/the camp’s drum room and created a wholly original song. It went something like, “Laser radiation. Laser radiation. Avoid direct contact. With laser radiation. DANGER. DANGER. DANGER.” It was amazing.

The members of The Heart-Shaped Tree were achingly sincere. Their song, “Underland” is the story of a girl who is “the knight and the princess” on her way to Underland. “I travel by moonlight, and I’m gonna win this game of lost and found.” Spoiler alert: She wins.

F-Bomb was everything I wished I was when I was a teenager. Their song was all about giving the finger to rules, school and being cool. There’s also a line about poor mental health, which shows that this band is far more aware and educated than I was when I was 17. Oh, and the “F” stands for feminist.

The Flying Amps radiated joy. Every time I walked into their room, they were dancing or laughing or singing or joking. And their song, their SONG! The chorus is really slow, it goes: “Weeee areeee girlssss. And weeee areeee hereeee. We’reeee telling youuuu. That we’reeee feddd uppp.” And then the bridge goes into the key of rock with, “RUN LIKE A GIRL. SING LIKE A GIRL. ROCK LIKE A GIRL!!!” It was amazing.

The Soft Jems never stopped improving. They worked and worked on single lines of their song until they got it exactly right. And man, this group reached for the stars. Their song had a line that went, “I feel amazing now that you’re gone. I’ll never forget what went wrong.” Picture a young woman absolutely belting out that last line Christina Aguilera-style, and you’ll have an idea of this band’s presence.

The Deadly Dollface Disciples were absolute naturals. Their song was my secret favorite from CoMo Girls Rock. They open their performance with the question, “Have you ever had a fear?” and launch into a song about fear and courage, and they ask the audience if they’ve ever had a fear and say, “Did you get over that fear? If not, let us help you out with that.” They were so collaborative and energetic and loving, and like every band at camp, they were an absolute joy to watch.

The camper showcase at the end of the week was a roller coaster of emotion for me. Both slideshows I’d prepared for the show were messed up because I’d made them on PowerPoint and the venue only had Open Office, so I was anxious about that and excited for the show and nervous about going on stage for the volunteer song. But the show was amazing, no one cared about the slide show, and I just stayed in the audience for the volunteer song. I’m pretty sure I only cried like four times during the songs. It was perfect. CoMo Girls Rock!