It’s been a big and beautiful week here at SAM and at F&W. All of the SAM trips came back with campers excited about new skills and recent adventures. They also gained a comforting feeling that they were returning to SAM, which was beginning to become a second home. On Sunday evening, after trips had returned, packed in and showered, we had our trips skit performances. For some, this was their first experience of celebrating the exciting moments, mishaps, and inside jokes that bring a trip group together. It’s really great for the campers to look back on muddy boots, spilled pasta, and leach encounters in a positive and funny light that will encourage them to take on another adventure.
After a day spent in camp, we held our first installment of three workshops designed to allow campers to:
1) Tell the community who they are and see who else is here.
2) Listen to formative experiences that were both easy and a struggle in order to develop compassion and empathy for others.
3) Learn how to be an ally and advocate for those experiencing life in ways that are both different and similar to themselves.
The night was a great success with campers taking the reins on an exercise called an ID circle. Here, one person steps forward, identifies with a feeling or characteristic and then everyone who feels or identifies in the same way steps forward. Campers saw themselves as no longer alone on subjects as varied as feeling nervous and paralyzed in social settings, experiencing the loss of a family member, divorce, having a processing or learning challenge, and having an family member that identifies as LGBTQ. It was wonderful and the campers left with a much better since of the diversity of our community.
Our SAM service trips were a big success during this camp session. Campers were again asked to only serve if the service trip was something they truly felt they wanted and supported. They all stepped up and we made a huge difference in the surrounding area. Camper signed up for their choice of trips. Two trips went out and hung new blazes on local trails, another cleaned litter and did macro invertebrate sampling on Patch Brook (a local stream SAM Camp has adopted), and another built a canoe rack for the Tiny Pond Shelter at Forest Echo Farm.
After a day of fun in the sun, we began to contemplate the possibilities for a skit that would be performed just 1.5 days later for Interdependence Day. Camp was immediately abuzz with what the plot should involve and what songs we should sing. Before we could assign staffers to facilitate which group would create the script, design props, write songs, and choreograph dances, the campers had two-thirds of those tasks completed. We have an amazingly talented group, and thanks to the show GLEE, musicals are once again really cool! Our campers not only created a skit, but created a process that felt really good to work in and where ideas were supported, people were given responsibilities, and hard work would pay off!
After hours of practice, we had our skit dialed. All that was left was to hike nine miles down to the lower camps and perform! All the way down, the campers practiced songs and worked on their lines. In the end, they put on possibly the best performance in SAM skit history! We had 15 minutes filled with six scenes, four songs and three dances – and we nailed them all. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pass on a video link at some point. So many gifts were shared and 39 campers spoke lines in front of hundreds of people; as a result, many campers faced their “stage fright.” The F&W Interdependence Day celebration focuses on the strengths of all the campers with performances by all camps, a contra dance, a parade, and a huge bond fire. So, everyone leaves feeling like a part of something really huge!
On Friday night, the campers made a quilt. This wasn’t just any quilt, but a “community quilt.” Each camper created a square that would be woven into our quilt. The campers split into smaller groups and shared their quilt squares. Each square represented parts of camper’s lives that were formative in both a challenging and wonderful way (part two of our workshop exercises). Once again, the campers were really great about sharing and supporting. An all-camp talk generated discussion on how each person has a story and we should look to understand them. The respect this group has shown to each other shows they are seeing each other as individuals deserving of compassion.
After a day of packing and a supportive send-off, the campers left Monday, the 11th, for their long trips. We’ve sent trips to the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains, the White Mountains, and to Flagstaff Lake in Maine. Our groups will be canoeing, rock climbing and backpacking throughout their trips. We are feeling really blessed that all of our campers were healthy as they left camp and no news is good news thus far. They have been blessed with wonderful weather as well.
Like I said, it was a big week! We’ll be looking forward to the return of campers and tons of stories on the 16th.
Thanks!
Jeff