Camp News & Blog

Notes from Pre-Camp

June 12th, 2026

It’s already been four weeks of long days on camp and late nights in the office. We had a wildly talented Facilities Manager hired but, when her husband got a great job far away… it was back to me leading that charge with the incredibly competent Kai and our small group of returners. It’s something we’ve done together for years and it’s been fun seeing Winter get whipped out of this place.

Kitchen News

We’ve two new chefs, Chef Chris and Chef Esaie. Only way to say this: these guys can sling it. Kate and I have always thought camp runs on its stomach (and a watch) and Chef Chris, Chef E and their team have kept everyone happy and full. Even our long-time Kitchen Manager Yanira has been impressed. High praise, indeed.

At breakfast today, we had 60% of our summer staff already with us. For the past week, they’ve been busting it alongside our DHs and PHs swinging weed-eaters, laying down paint and sod and picking up sticks and limbs and logs. Between (good natured) World Cup arguments, learning camp songs and traditions and getting to know one another, we’ve gotten a lot done.

By the end of dinner, we had 95% of team on camp. This is a HIGH energy group with more returners than we’ve ever enjoyed. Time to roll!

Speaking of which, Kate and I have great news.

Weequahic News

After being partners and part-owners in camp for many years, we completed our full purchase of Weequahic in May. We’ve loved working with our partners and will continue to be close. (They are all coming to Sydney and CK3’s wedding in August.) And, it was time to make Weequahic a completely family-run operation.

What will change?

Beside our young Kelly men becoming more involved and, with Luke heading to college, Kate and I spending more time in PA… nothing.

The values of Gratitude, Attitude and Courage have never been more important. Finding, recruiting, training and leading staff remains paramount. Home visits, Kate leading Nominations, the quest for continual improvement, great traditions we’ve started or kept going all remain the same.

If nothing else, it’s motivated us to do even more for our campers and staff and this great camp the Lustig family founded in 1953.

We are so happy to be fully started on Summer 2026. We’ve got two great weeks of Staff Orientation in front of us. After that, we can’t wait to get the kids here! Time for SUMMER!

Chores at Camp

May 23rd, 2026

At camp, it’s a camper’s right to have a ton of fun. Yes, they’ll learn some good things, too. But we find some of the best learning comes when you are having a blast. No phone-induced comparison traps. No worry about judgement from the larger world. Just be yourself and have a blast!

And, with that ‘right of fun’, comes some responsibilities.

Responsibilities at Camp

Just like us adults, campers have responsibilities, too. They are certainly more simple than the tax code, though: no swimming without a lifeguard, boys and girls stay out of the opposite gender’s bunk, follow the ‘banned items’ rule, do your chores and be kind to others.

The first three are pretty easy to delineate. These are ‘if/then’ statements. You either left your cell phone at home or you brought it to camp. Easy decision.

Those last two responsibilities – chores and kindness – those are a little harder to enforce. But camp, just like society at large, does better when all the participants practice what an old English judge called ‘obedience to the unenforceable.’

Chores

The following is by no means and exhaustive list of chores performed at camp but it’s certainly a good start:

  • Make your bed every morning. 
  • Put away your dirty clothes.
  • Clear your plate and cutlery and trash in the Dining Hall at every meal… and help clean the table
  • Brushing teeth, washing hair (with actual shampoo!)
  • Assist with other bunk chores like sweeping or being the clean-up DJ or taking out the (small) trash bin or checking the drying lines, etc.

Why do all this? For a number of reasons. But the main reason is explained beautifully by Michael Korda:

Chores don’t steal childhood. They teach life. They teach gratitude… It’s about love disguised as responsibility. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.

Done right, chores build community. They make our place tidy and clean and more enjoyable. They help keep us physically safe and emotionally calm. We become more prepared for a brighter future. Let’s move to the last of the ‘unenforceables.’

Be Kind

It’s a choice – a set of demonstrable behaviors performed towards others… and yourself! Sometimes, being kind is helping someone up. Other times, being kind is passing along a challenging truth.

Now, we can’t make someone be kind. Each of us has to choose how we act towards one another and ourselves. We can set up consequences for certain actions – being mean, bullying, etc., sure. However, we cannot reach into a person’s mind and heart and drive them around like a tank.

What we can do isshow a whole bunch of great examples of kindness and patience (our staff and older campers) and inspire to live and act more kind. We can also have our counselors ‘nominate’ campers they saw doing kind and good things at camp at the Flag each night – a long tradition at Weequahic.

The power of examples is an amazing thing.

Do Your Chores and Be Kind

Can you have a ton of fun at camp without these two responsibilities being achieved with a level of consistency and effort? Sure can! (It just won’t be at Weequahic.)

Like many things in life that provide outsized benefits – eat your fruits and veggies, move your body, be grateful – these are simple ideas. That doesn’t mean they are always easy. But, like anything else, the more we practice….

Have a great week. Can’t wait to get everyone to camp soon!

Wow in the Everyday

May 8th, 2026

When was the last time you did something you do all the time – ride in a car, open a refrigerator, facetime with a friend – and go ‘HOLY COW! This is incredible!’

If you are like me, it’s probably not often or, more likely – it’s never.

So, why do I bring this up? Well… I’m typing this not long after a take-off from Newark on a flight home to Georgia. I don’t know if the pilot wanted to show off or we had incoming traffic or what but she moved us around a bunch and… it was so much fun! (My seatmate was less enthused. She’s ok now – I’m sure her nails will grow back.)

Looking out the window, I saw the NYC skyline, Lady Liberty, the bay, the low clouds all while swooping – literally – like one of those little starlings that dart around. And then it hit me – I’m flying. I’m literally flying.

Ok… ok – I get it. I can feel you thinking, “Yeah, Cole. That’s what happens when you get on a plane. You fly.” Yep – it’s palpable. I get it.

Let me tell you why I’m thinking about this a lot lately. (And, it’s not just because camp starts in seven weeks.)

Ice Age

Here is an important thing to remember: you, me and everyone else on this beautiful blue and green orb are descendants of the humans who survived the last Ice Age.

While the movies made the term popular, the actual event was… well, let’s just say it was ‘challenging.’ How much so?

It is thought that very, very few humans made it through that experience. To provide some perspective, it’s thought the people in Europe would fill just one SEC football stadium. It was a rough time for us… and we made it through!

And now, just 11,000 years later, we are flying and flushing toilets and exploring space and going to camp and having full meals delivered to our door and talking with grandparents across the country and….Phew. We are the descendants of some pretty tough people.

History and Gratitude

The more I read and listen to history, the more grateful I feel for our current times.

Are there things to improve upon right now? HECK YEAH. But we aren’t (literally) hunting our dinner. We aren’t talking about how much closer that 100’ tall glacier is getting to our cave/home. Saber-tooth tigers aren’t roaming the land looking for these not-very-hairy-no-claws-no-sharp-teeth things (read: us) to snack upon.

I’ve just finished listening to a biography on Napolean. Malaria killed enormous parts of his armies. The communication lags led to enormous advantages and disadvantages. There were actual serfs and lords and women couldn’t vote or be educated.

That was not that long ago – a mere 200 years. In context of the age of the earth, it’s not even a whisper of an eye movement, a thought.

Wow in the Every Day

Campers. Staff members. Anyone who is reading this…. Camp is a:

Complete. And. Total. GIFT.

When we read just a little bit of history and think about going to camp… well, it’s eye-opening. To take a few weeks and connect and play and learn in all the right ways? We aren’t working or trying survive. We are living.

Should we feel bad that we get to enjoy this gift? HECK NO. This is a gift for which we should be immeasurably grateful. It should make us better humans. We should use this gift to make friends from (literally) around the world, to expand our awareness and empathy, to deepen our resolve to be grateful, to choose how we respond, to build our courage in order to make the little spot on this world in which we live BETTER when we go back to our other home.

So, as I fly over the mountains the last Ice Age created, I leave you with this: come to camp prepared to make it awesome. We are going to zig and zag, do things we don’t normally get to enjoy… and remain aware of the gift that we get to enjoy. We get to do all this… together.

So good. Can’t wait. See you soon.