Instead, White is teaching kids survival skills to make it through all manner of ordeals, from wilderness emergencies to kidnappings.

“We do all kinds of fire-starting, primitive shelters, navigation using a compass, or the stars and the moon or with moss,” White said. “We teach them about escaping restraints — North Carolina is one of the top states for human trafficking, and kids get taken all the time. It’s not hard to get out of restraints.”

The Piked Antler Project’s Survival Skill Center hosts several camps for kids during the summer and adult programming throughout the year, including the upcoming Kid’s Adventure Survival Camp for kids between the ages of 10 and 13, starting July 8.

The five-day camp covers things like edible and medicinal plants, too. As White walks along the stream that runs the course of the property hosting the camp, he points to wild onions, naturally astringent weeds, edible flowers and more along the way.

“As we’re walking, I’ll pick up plants as we pass them and talk about what they can do. We see poison ivy, and then we talk about jewel weed being a cure,” White said. “We had a kid who was so terrible with poison ivy, within 20 minutes of exposure he had a rash everywhere. So we went back to camp and broke up some jewel weed, and by the next day it was about 90 percent gone.”

For all of the tangible survival skills campers learn in their time at the Survival School, some of the most important takeaways don’t involve starting fires or navigating without a map.

“It’s a character thing,” White said.

White himself had low self-confidence as a kid, and depression took a major toll on him through his teens. It wasn’t until he joined the military in the early 2000s that he found a sense of purpose that grew his self-confidence.

“I got out in 2004, and I’ve had time to chew on it, to think about that system,” he said. “What caused that self-confidence? And, really, it’s pretty much just the struggle. It’s hard, it sucks and you want to quit. You want to leave, but then you don’t and you realize it feels pretty good.”

That concept, of adversity breeding confidence, is the cornerstone of the programs White runs.

“Success preceded by struggle breeds true confidence,” White said, reciting one of the guiding principles of the camp from memory. “You let them struggle, and they can’t believe they can do something but then they do it. ‘I can’t build a fire with a magnifying glass, that’s stupid.’ But then 5 minutes later, it’s done.”

One week isn’t enough to completely change a camper’s mindset, but White said the seeds planted during the course have borne impressive fruit in many of his return campers.

“You see a lot of changes from the kids who don’t want to be here, especially,” he said. “Attitudes change, and you get feedback from the parents. It’s not this huge shift, but they’re just a little more respectful, you ask them to do something once instead of twice. They don’t complain as much.”

The course instills the beginnings of what White hopes will grow into deeply rooted convictions in campers. Throughout all of the activities, from shelter-building to navigation and wilderness cooking, White peppers campers with questions intended to force them to look inwardly and question who they hope to grow up to be.

“The last group was all boys, and I asked them two questions. I asked them to describe what makes a good man, and I asked them to define self-confidence,” White said. “Then I asked them how to attain those things, and how they’re doing so far.”

The group’s responses varied, but no matter where they stood at the end of the week White told them they would be accountable for growing into their own expectations over the year to come.

“I told them all I’d see them again next year,” he said. “The first question I’m going to ask is ‘how are you doing on becoming the man you want to be?’”

Registration for the July 8 camp is still open, and another session begins July 29.