30 years ago...

I was on the phone today with a dad who was interested in sending his daughter to camp for the first time.  While talking with him about availability and such, he mentioned that he had been a Kanata camper himself 30 years ago, and we ended up having a great conversation about his time at camp and how he is looking forward to sending his daughter for her first time. Right before I started talking to him, I was flipping through old newspapers looking at articles and pictures of years past at Kanata, and it was so great to have a piece of our past find us.  It is amazing the connection that comes from camp--this man was a camper almost 10 years before I was even born, but simply because of the fact that we both had Kanata in common, we were able to share stories--him about our past, and me about our present.  

In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he actually was holding some pictures from the first time he went to camp--him standing in front of Cabin 13, getting ready for his first week at camp.  After hanging up the phone, I started thinking about what a great thing it is that this dad had such a good experience at Kanata 30 years ago, that, regardless of the fact that he lives several states away now, and hasn't been back to the area recently, he wants his daughter to have her first camp experience at Kanata.  I hope that 30 years from now, she'll be calling the camp office to find out about sending her child for their first summer!

Some things never change!

This afternoon, I found the last few names to complete the list of Kanata directors.  Just filling in those empty years with names makes me feel like we have a better hold on our history.  Looking through old annual reports today to find those names, I found all kinds of other fascinating information.  In 1956, the daily camp schedule was incredibly similar to how our schedule is now, over 50 years later.  Many of the camp activities were the same activities we offer now.  

While there are clearly many differences in camp from the 1950s til now, I think it is amazing that there are some things that have remained just the same.  We have been changing lives in much the same fashion for over 50 years, and I think that is something we can be very proud of.  We talk all the time both about the community of camp, and the importance of being involved in the community around us, and today I read a newspaper article from 1954 that said:  "The camp became a community effort when businessmen joined hands with construction leaders, laborers and others to complete the project, including a nine-acre lake and 13 buildings."  A 1957 article called Kanata a "civic miracle".  

How great that from the very beginning, community was such an integral part of Kanata.  I love the fact that the community joined together to help us get started, and I love the fact that 55 years later, community is still a main focus of ours.  It is a tradition to be proud of.  

The Story of Kanata

Recently, I've started trying to uncover the history of Kanata.  I realized a while back that we don't seem to know a lot of our history, and to me, it seems like knowing our history is an important part of being able to tell our story.   We don't even have a complete list of our directors for the past 55 years, and so that seemed like a good place to start.

For the past few weeks, I've been flipping through a few old brochures I had around, filling in the blanks I knew, and thinking about ways to find the information.  Today, I got a box of old newspaper clippings and old annual reports and other such things from the Durham Y, and I couldn't wait to dig into it and see what I could find.  

A few hours, and lots of yellowing newspapers later, I've only made a bit of a dent in the box, but I am amazed at what I've already found, and I feel like I know so much more about the story of camp.  

My list of directors is growing, and I think I may have even found the first director (H.C. Raiford), but I'm hoping one of the next few articles will confirm it.  I've learned about the Durham Y's history of camping, which started 34 years before Kanata.  In 1921, the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis Club, and the Y started Camp Rota-Ki-Y.  

A change of name to Camp Sacarusa (named after a local Indian Chief), a fire, a change in location, and an infantile paralysis epidemic later, the land for Kanata was purchased in 1946.  

I'd always heard that Kanata was built in about three weeks, with a whole lot of help and money from local civic organizations, but I had no idea that 85 acres of the land for camp had been purchased eight years before Kanata's first summer of campers.  In 1947, the first plans for Kanata were drawn up, but the Y didn't have the money at the time, so a trust fund was started to raise the money to build camp.  

Learning the life story of Kanata will probably be a long process, but I'm fascinated by it.  Every time I get to fill in a space on the list of directors, or come across an interesting picture from 30 or 40 years ago, I am thrilled.  For almost half my life, Kanata has been a huge part of who I am, and I am so excited to have the opportunity to explore how Kanata has become what it is today.  

More than just activities...

Yesterday was YMCA Healthy Kids Day, and I spent the morning sitting outside chatting with people who walked by my table, and had some kind of interest in camp.  I talked to a few parents who had fond memories of their own camp days, and couldn't wait until their child was old enough to attend, and other parents who had children well old enough, but couldn't imagine sending their child away for a week.  While talking to all of these families, I noticed that one of the more common questions asked of me was "what kind of activities do you offer?".  This is one of the easier questions to answer:  I can rattle off a list of camp activities in my sleep.

A list of activities gives an insight into how we fill the days at camp, but it is only a few brushstrokes when trying to paint the picture of the value of camp.  Camp is a place where the rules are simple:  try and live by the character traits of honesty, respect, responsibility and caring, and have fun while you do so.  Kids tend to pick up quickly on things like independence, sharing, confidence, and trying new things.  No one complains about having to make their bed every morning because they want a high score on cabin inspection.

Most of all, camp is a place where everyone belongs.  It is a place where making friends is easy, and everyone has something in common.  Camp is a unique place that strikes the balance of allowing people to simultaneously grow up, while allowing them the chance to really enjoy childhood.  It is an experience that every child should have the opportunity to try.

Anticipation

Every year at around this time, I find myself getting ridiculously excited about the fact that camp is in the near future.  Every year since I can remember, I've had a countdown going for the days til I got to go to camp or once on staff, the days til campers arrived.  This year is no exception--despite the fact that I am at camp every day, I have a countdown in my calendar so I know just how many days it is until our campers arrive (58, in case you were wondering).  

Right now, camp is beautiful with the arrival of spring.  I love looking out my window at work and seeing what a gorgeous place I work at.  But I cannot wait for that first day campers come, with all of their energy and excitement.  I can't wait to walk around camp and hear cheers and songs from all directions.  I can't wait to hear splashing in the lake, and shouts of laughter in the pool.  I can't wait to see the empty cabins fill back up and take on the personality that the counselors bring to them.  I can't wait to eat in a dining hall where, after dinner, standing on your bench to sing is a common activity.  I can't wait for Friday night campfires, seeing old friends, and making new ones.  

I love this time of anticipation, waiting for summer to start.  I love remembering all the things I love about camp, I love planning and preparing for camp to start, and I love looking at staff and camper lists to see who is coming back.  I love dreaming of the possibilities the summer holds, and I love getting just a bit more excited every day as camp gets closer and closer.

  

What a privilege...

One of the things that has been so great about staying around camp for a number of years is that I have had the privilege of watching a lot of our campers grow up.  There are kids that were in my cabin when I was a staff trainee that have been on staff for several summers now and campers that are in our staff trainee program that I have known since they were six.  

Most of the kids I think of as "my" campers are kids I had in my cabin when they were six or seven and are in middle school now.  Every summer, I half-expect to see kids that look exactly the same as they did the summer before, but every year, I am shocked to see how grown up they have gotten over the past year.  On one hand, it makes me feel a little bit old, but on the other hand, it is really such a privilege to watch these campers grow and change from year to year.

There is one particular group of girls that I had in my cabin for two summers, who are always a highlight of my summer.  These girls are just the ideal campers--they love camp, are well-behaved, are excited about every activity, and despite the fact that they always come in a group, they are so inclusive of other girls.

This past summer, they were in a cabin with a two girls who were only able to attend camp through the outreach program at one of our YMCAs.  These two girls didn't speak great English, didn't have all the brand name clothes, and really just came from a different world than the rest of their cabin.  Middle school girls are famous for ostracizing others and making life difficult for those who don't quite fit in, so, being that age, there was definite potential for disaster.

I have never been more proud of a group of girls than I was this summer when I saw how inclusive and friendly my girls were with these two girls who so easily could have been outsiders.  All week long, their cabin traveled in a pack.  Where you found one of them, you found them all, and they were all having a blast.  They were the most inclusive and compassionate group of girls I have ever known, and consistently amazed me with their concern for others, as well as their excitement for every aspect of camp.

Watching these girls grow up over the past five years has been such a privilege, and I can't wait to see what they are like five years down the road!

Patchwork

Every summer, on the last night of camp, it is a tradition for our staff to paint a block in arts and crafts.  It is one of my favorite places at camp, because in that one building at camp, there is so much history.  I can look around and see names of counselors from when I was a camper, names of past co-workers, and even names from before I was born. Each summer, as a new group of staff searches for a place to paint their name, and the returning counselors add another few numbers next to their name, arts and crafts reflects the changing story of camp.  It is always being added to and each summer, a little bit of each staff member's personality is added to the walls.  

I love looking around arts and crafts, and seeing all of the different personalities of our staff come out.  Different blocks remind me of different summers and different friends, but when I look at the patchwork of painting on the wall, I am mostly reminded of how camp brings together so many different people.  Many people who have influenced my life in huge ways are people that I am sure I never would have interacted with outside of camp, but I am so grateful that whether I knew them for a summer or more, they are a piece of the patchwork that makes up my life. 

It's a beautiful thing

During the summers I spent as a cabin counselor, I was always in the youngest girls cabin.  As you would imagine, in a cabin with kids as young as six, homesickness was a frequent problem.  Many of my campers had never been away from home before, and this often inspired a round of tears on Sunday evening around bedtime.  Often this homesickness is contagious, but in most cases it was an easy fix.  Magic mints, special stuffed animals, and a little bit of individual attention can go a long way.  Occasionally though, there was a camper that would have a little bit of a harder time adjusting, and they might spend not only Sunday night, but also some of Monday, breaking out into sobs.  

My absolute favorite thing about being a counselor was when these kids who had the more intense cases of homesickness at the beginning of the week would come up to me after Friday night campfire, when everyone was saying their goodbyes, with tears streaming down their faces.  Sobbing, they would inform me that they wanted to stay all summer, and that they were absolutely not ready to go home the next morning.  While I never like seeing campers cry, these particular tears were a bit of a triumph for me.

Seeing a camper who starts out the week adamant that they want to go home become the camper who can't stop crying because they have to leave in the morning might be one of the single most rewarding experiences of my life.  In that moment, you know that one of your campers has experienced the magic that is the reason you work at camp, and you have been a part of that magic.  It's a beautiful thing.

Camp Friends

A few days ago, one of my childhood best friends asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding.  Laura is the first of the girls I grew up with to get engaged, and so of course, her engagement has caused me to reminisce about all of our childhood adventures.  Laura and I met at church when we were three, and grew up going on church trips and playing handbells together.  We also went to elementary school together for a few years, but I think most importantly, we went to camp together.  From the time I was seven to seventeen, we were constantly recounting stories from our last camp experience, or planning for the next summer.

In the almost twenty years Laura and I have been friends, we have shared many experiences, but some of the most vivid in my mind are our summers at camp.  There was a camp that was a little more rustic than our tastes (outhouses and a hose tied to a tree for brushing our teeth), and there was a camp where we had a slightly traumatizing canoe experience.  There were counselors we didn't really like, and counselors we adored; there was a sailboat we managed to capsize in approximately three feet of water, countless inside jokes, camp songs and cheers that we sang year round.  There were new friends we didn't want to leave, a lot of tears on the last night of camp, and our first real experience with tragedy the summer one of of our fellow staff members was killed in a car wreck.  

I think that camp is one of the main reasons our friendship has continued over the years;  camp is an environment that fosters friendship in a way that school or other activities just can't.  The friends you make at camp are friends that see you in an environment where the rules are different;  it is a world of it's own, complete with unique trends and slang, and because it is a different world, the friendships you make there are different from those you make elsewhere.  

Yappoi

Every Friday night during the summer, we close the camp session with a campfire.  After dinner, all of camp gathers by the flagpole, and forms a giant chain of people, holding hands.  Our staff start everyone off in a song that begins "yappoi a tai tai aei a..." and the line snakes its way down the hill towards the lake, where we have our closing campfire.  I don't know that anyone knows exactly what the song means, or where it came from.  When I was a camper, I was told that it was an old Indian song, and when I became a counselor, I passed that down to my campers;  but like many camp legends, the truth of that is questionable.  

Regardless of my lack of knowledge of the origins of "yappoi" or the true meaning of it, every Friday night when I hear 250+ campers and counselors join together in singing as they make their way to campfire, I am reminded of just what camp means to me.  In my summers at camp, I have learned a multitude of things.  As a camper, I learned independence, how to interact with and live with people I barely knew, and had the ability to try all kinds of new activities.  As a counselor, I learned about responsibility, creativity and thinking on my feet, and how to deal with discipline and homesickness.  As a head counselor, I learned about supervising staff, dealing with difficult campers and parents, and working on a team.  In all of my years at camp, regardless of my role, two constant themes have been building friendships and personal growth.

My experiences at camp have had an incredible amount of influence on my life, on the person I am today, and on what is important to me.  When I hear "yappoi" it always makes me take a minute to stop and think about how camp has molded my life, and how grateful I am to be a part of a camp community.  For some, camp is just a week or two of summer, but for me camp is a way of life, and that little song of questionable origin always reminds me why camp is such an integral part of my life.

Passion

I frequently hear people talk about how important it is to find your passion.  Do what you love. Life is too short to waste your time doing something you don't care about.  I also frequently talk to people about how lucky I am to have found my passion at such a young age.  As a recent college graduate in this economy, I am so fortunate to be able to go to work every day, and even more, to go to a job and a place I love.  

After I graduated from college in May of 2008, I spent my fifteenth summer at camp.  At the end of the summer, I had all intentions of spending a year doing community service work in New Orleans, but with less than a week til my flight was scheduled to leave, I realized that camp wasn't something I was ready to leave, even if for just a year.  So I did an abrupt about face, and was lucky enough that the camp I had been at for the past ten summers was about to begin interviews for an office position.  A few weeks later, I found myself settling into my first "real" job instead of into the inner city as planned.  

While at the moment, a lot of what I do doesn't sound very exciting:  filing papers and processing registrations and answering phone calls, I enjoy what I do immensely.  Ever since I was six years old, and I went to camp for the first time, I have been in love with the idea of camp.  As a child, I went to several different camps, and had both good experiences and bad;  but the good always heavily outweighed the bad, and I always started counting down to the next summer the minute I was home.  When I was 12, I went to Camp K for the first time, and I never wanted to leave.  Within a year or two, my mind was set on working at CK--not just as a summer job, but in some capacity, full time.  A few years later, I am amazed that I have the opportunity to follow my childhood dream and that the world of camp is still as enticing as it was to me as a 6 year old going on my first real independent adventure, a 12 year old who fell in love with CK, and a 16 year old who couldn't believe she was finally the counselor. 

I think my favorite part of my job is when I get to talk to a parent who is genuinely interested in what camp can do for their child.  I love getting to share my experiences and my passion for camp with others, and I love getting to tell parents what I have seen camp do in the lives of children.  In my ten years at CK, and my years before that as a camper other places, I have been changed by camp and I have seen camp change others.  Camp is an experience like no other, and I am so excited about venturing into the world of camping full time.  As summer approaches, I'm both nervous and excited to see what camp looks like from a different perspective, but I know one thing will never change whether I'm 6 or 60, and still lucky enough to be involved in camping:  I'm always counting down the days til camp begins.