Camp Champions Blog

“We help make strong kids.”

Each year, we are asked to make presentations at national camp conferences about our high school leadership program.  We call it the Senior Camper program and it serves teens finishing 9th, 10th and 11th grades.  Here is an overview of the program.  I hope you can see why it has become an nationally recognized!

(This is the fourth in 4 articles on the “Four R’s” that we stress at Camp Champions)

As you might have seen in a previous article, we focus on the “Four R”s:
1. showing Respect,
2. taking reasonable Risks,
3. Reaching out to others, and
4. taking Responsibility.
This article talks about what we do to stress Reaching out to others.

I occasionally run out of inspiration for blog topics.  [Note: some of you may deem that I have already done so and continue to write nonetheless.  There are days I agree!]

I have shared this story with parents and with counselors for years.  Last year, a former camper asked that I write it out for a leadership class he was working on.  When a parent also asked me about it, I decided to share it here,

Since my other blogs today are long, please allow just a short one to share two fun snippets.

Warning - this blog is a little serious and not particularly amusing.  It is a short piece I wrote for counselor orientation.  Each summer, we have one of the longest and most elaborate counselor training and orienation programs in the country.  We spend roughly two full weeks (of 16 hour days) to help our counselors learn about running programs that are safe (physically and emotionally), fun, and "educational."  To be clear, I do NOT use the "E" word (education) around campers or counselors.  I love education, but most young people do not associate it with fun.  We instead talk about growth, skill acquisition, and adventure in the context of outdoor education and creative play at summer camp.