Every year new and returning families have the opportunity to sign up their child for an awesome summer at Keystone. We welcome them on opening day with so much excitement, knowing we’ve planned for them to have the best time possible with us. Whether its their first time, or their third, campers become quite familiar with our values while they experience everything camp has to offer. Campfire is one of my favorite Keystone traditions. However, the Sunday morning campfire is special in its own way because it highlights the values of Keystone Camp.
In Sunday morning campfire, our Counselors-In-Training (CITs) create lessons based on one of our six core values: friendship, leadership, integrity, respect, tradition, and community. Within the lesson that’s created they highlight one of those values and talk about what that word means to our campers. They find a wonderful book that embodies their chosen value and read it to the campers as well. After reading the book, they ask campers what that value looks like around camp and how it was shown in the book. As a former teacher I love that they always start with prior knowledge and allow campers to share what they know. #welovepeertopeerlearning
I could go on and on about how impactful the Sunday morning campfire lessons are, but I think what’s more invaluable is the multitude of stories that can be shared about each of our six core values. Whether our campers realize it or not, they are living in word and deed by those six core values. I want to share two stories about values that I personally love because I get to see them in action every summer.
Every year our 10th-grade leadership girls in our AIDE program have the opportunity to apply to our CIT program. As a CIT, these girls have aged out as campers, gone through an interview process, and are now hired staff members working for camp rather than experiencing it. CITs are empowered to apply the leadership skills they have learned throughout the AIDE program on top of receiving extensive training during our staff training week. I noticed that the biggest and most consistent piece in this transition is navigating leadership as a counselor. What I find to be even more interesting is the uncertainty displayed at the beginning in being a camp counselor, but not because they don’t know camp.
The uncertainty lies in the unexpected to come and how they will navigate it, not realizing they’ve been training for this experience since their 9th-grade Leader-In-Training (LIT) summer. They’ve been slowly taking on responsibilities with their peers year after year, such as leading assembly, setting tables in the dining hall, babysitting younger campers, helping in the kitchen, crafting the final night’s banquet, and attending leadership meetings, while still experiencing camp. They have been leading in camp as the oldest girls who lead by word and deed, setting the example for others to follow.
So why is it that the uncertainty takes away that feeling of preparedness? I’ve come to believe that it’s the experience itself that affirms and validates the feeling of preparedness. I recently spoke to a returning staff member who was a part of our CIT program last summer. She told me that she felt better about going into this summer because the job was more familiar and she could invest more. Granted this may have been a first job or even a first experience in a more authoritative role, but it sounded pretty on par with what anyone would say after gaining experience with something new. What I wasn’t expecting was what she said next.
One of my favorite things about my conversation with her was the wisdom in what she said to me: “If you are a CIT, hold on to what you know and love about camp, know that you are adding to it. It’s about the experience, not necessarily planning and how much you prepare for it.” I thought this was one of the best things I’d heard a returning staff member say. It really resonated with me, because despite all of the preparedness naturally built into the progression of our leadership program and even in our staff training week, it wasn’t going to cover it all. There is so much unexpected and uncertainty even from a director standpoint. No day is similar to the next; We work in a fluid and fast-paced environment. The experience, like she said, will re-affirm the leadership traits that have been developed, challenge you each day differently, and force you to grow and adapt to the uncomfortable. I absolutely agree with her, as she and every CIT in years past, present, and future will add to camp.
A CIT has to learn to navigate leadership because as a camper it’s all about the camper experience, but that drastically shifts when you’re now the one in charge of offering that very experience. We can practice leadership skills and strengthen them as well, but some of the best leadership skills are those we develop in the experiences we have that force us to grow and figure out how to lead. Reflecting on my conversation with her, it was clear she not only successfully completed her CIT year, but she also grew in confidence as a leader based on her experience. It felt like such a full-circle moment to see our values become integrated into navigating leadership as a staff member, not just within our camp community. Camp is truly a gift that keeps on giving.
My second story is meaningful in a similar way. When you think of the concept of “community,” a lot of words come to mind: united, supportive, uplifted, empowered, nurtured, and invaluable are just a few. Everywhere you go has a community, whether it be your school community, your neighborhood community, and even right here at camp we have our own community. Each of the communities we are a part of in some way shape and impact us on a daily basis. At Keystone Camp we often use the phrase “living well in community” and we discuss what that looks like and how campers can do that on a daily basis. What I find the most interesting is the different responses to what living well in community looks like around camp. In this situation there aren’t many wrong answers to give as it’s opinion based. I think what takes the cake for me is when a camper inevitably says “picking up trash” or “putting trash in the trash can.” It always puzzles me because almost every summer, at least for the past two, we’ve had a teachable moment surrounding living well in community regarding trash. Everyone loves the after-rest-hour-rush to the tuck patio for an awesome afternoon snack. I personally love a good ice cream sandwich, which gets me a lot of questions being that I don’t like chocolate, but that’s a story for another day.
Afternoon tuck is one of the very few occasions that our campers have the opportunity to eat a sweet and sugary snack. Of course, daily dessert at dinner is always there, but to know that there is a sweet treat before dinner is exciting. Every now and then during some point in the summer, snack tuck becomes so sweet that as a camp community we forget to live well. We leave behind extensive amounts of empty sorbet containers, soda cans, and wrappers from drink mixes and ice cream sandwiches. This situation is particularly bad for the animals who live here with us at camp. Once we notice the trash becoming a problem, we try to push gentle reminders to pick up trash and reminisce on what “living well in community” means around camp. Living well is mindfulness and consideration to others, including our camp animals, and it’s being an active participant in ensuring you take care of shared spaces. Living well is as simple as campers reminding each other to “pick up trash” or “put trash in the trash can.” So when the gentle reminders fail to work, how can we as a community be accountable for our actions?
As directors, we ask the community to do intentional work rather than offering gentle reminders. We’ll start the day with the news (that ultimately causes a series of moans and groans) that we won’t have tuck that afternoon. We share with our community that the decision was made based on the extensive amount of trash left behind. It never feels good making the announcement, but if we don’t practice “living well in community” or what being a good community member looks like, then where is the value in what we claim to be important to Keystone? So instead of regular tuck during the usual timeframe, our community comes together and takes time to pick up trash scattered around camp. The next day we get to experience and witness the usual excitement return with a series of footsteps as campers scramble to get out of the cabins to be first in line for their favorite sweet treat. The next day also highlights more intentionality in the community overall, ensuring trash makes it into the trashcan.
This past summer, I had a camper in our oldest elf age group (K-4th graders) come up to me, and in her hand she had collected several pieces of trash. She was so eager to show me what she was doing and she had the biggest smile on her face while she was telling me all about it. I couldn’t help but smile and thank her for doing that. The kicker in this situation was that she was doing this while tuck was actively happening and wasn’t even worried about eating a snack. I was taken aback, as I don’t know many kids who opt out of sweet treats to pick up trash. However, it could be said that she understands the value in community, in taking care of shared spaces, and in being an active participant in a community that you love and care about. I would even go so far as to say she values her place in the Keystone Camp community and being able to be a part of it.
In sharing Keystone’s values with campers and our community, we encourage and empower others to grow and become the person they want to be. I can’t think of a better, more fulfilling way to impact others that lasts a lifetime. In the last blog I wrote, I mentioned how camp lessons are life lessons and I stand by that. I also stand by the importance and impact of values and how those too can be opportunities that challenge us to grow and navigate many different situations we find ourselves in.
