We’ve had a huge week! We have SAM Camp fully between our toes, under our fingernails and in our lungs. We all seem to be speaking a similar language (not just English). Our cabin trips were great! Campers returned exclaiming that they had conquered fears, learned more about each other, and had seen and experienced many new things. The counselors returned feeling wonderful and inspired by their groups’ energies and willingness. We had great weather, which allowed for a more comfortable way to sink into life in the back country.
This six-day stretch of camp life lends itself to my one of my favorite parts of camp – watching the campers figure out how they can create the safe and fun community. Camper voices of leadership advocated for an inclusive and safe community. One of my favorite “community speaks” was when a camper encouraged the community that ‘it is not enough to invite others into where you are comfortable, but instead to leave your own comfort to join them.’ What a strong statement!
Our 14-year-old campers were given the opportunity to become Asana guides and help to lead our younger campers in taking care of our community. Our activities this week included making garden signs for our vegetables, writing letters home, playing capture the flag, learning knots, beading, and making trail bars to send to our Questers. Our SAM community also participated in some daylong service trips. We sampled insect populations in Patch Brook, blazed a trail for our future cabin trips, and helped our fellow campers at Tamarack Farm work in the gardens.
In addition to several nights of all-camp games, campers participated in ID Night. This night is one piece of our social-justice curriculum, designed to allow members of our community to see our diversity. Campers have the opportunity to self-identify in all sorts of ways, such as where they are from and what their family looks like. Many campers found comfort in seeing that others experience the world similarly and that they are not alone in their personal struggles. A stronger and closer community has emerged as we are more present with our whole selves.
The highlight of this week was the skit we wrote and performed for the annual Farm & Wilderness Interdependence Day celebration. Each year SAM camp performs a skit, complete with songs and dances that emphasize the importance of each camp. We are especially proud of our skit because each part is fully camper inspired and camper driven. Campers outlined the skit, rewrote three songs, organized music, choreographed dances, made the props, and even directed it themselves. It was truly inspirational to see them come together to take this skit from creation to performance in 48 hours.
Another impressive and camper-driven activity was an exercise put together by four campers to bring out our different levels of comfort with certain social situations we find ourselves in at camp. The camper facilitators asked the campers to physically position themselves along a spectrum ranging from very comfortable to very uncomfortable. The design allowed us to see the range of comfort within our community around things like being complimented for the way you look, walking up to a group of people you don’t know very well or finding a seat at mealtime, hearing others curse or swear, heteronormative comments or homophobic language. The campers did a wonderful job wrapping it up, with each individual better aware of how they could create comfort for those around them.
We’ve been packing for long trips today and we’ll be taking off Monday morning for canoeing, climbing, and backpacking in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. We have a great lineup of trips! Check out the new photos posted on the secured gallery for families to see pictures of your camper and their trip groups.