I thought that I would share with you a writing that I share with my summer staff during training week.  I wrote this year’s ago as I was trying to figure out how to explain to new staff what would happen over the course of the summer.  Think about it.  It is titled, simply: 

A Thought about Camp

This is camp.  This is where you’ll be spending your summer.  These are the people you will be spending your summer with.  Take a good look around.  By the end of the summer, you will know these people inside out, you will know this camp inside out.  You will know all of the buildings, the paths, the forest trails, the cool hiding spots – you will know everything about this camp.  There will be disagreements, there will be arguments, there will be laughter, there will be tears, there will be quietness, and there will be noise.  Some people here will end up being life long friends, some will not.  You will have good days, you will have bad days.  Somedays the sun will shine; somedays the rain will fall.  There will be cuts and bruises, sleepless nights spent comforting a camper, and meals where you give up the last hot-dog for a camper.  The campers will fill this camp.  You will never forget some of these campers, yet others will pass from your memory.  The campers will never forget you, none of them.  What you do in the eleven days with these kids is invaluable.  Do not kid yourselves in thinking that you are part of these kids’ lives for eleven days and that it is.  These kids will use you as a role model: they will remember what you say, they will mimic what you do, and they will try to be like you.  The time spent at camp will be branded onto their lives.  The reason you are here it so help the campers.  This is where you will be spending your summer.  This is camp.

Joe Richards
“every child deserves a week at camp…”