I’ve learned how to drive all of the little and major equipment around camp and can (mostly) fix fryers, toilets and even washing machines.

The most recent learning centered around lake management. Did you know that lakes need to be drained every 50 years to maintain their health? I certainly didn’t… until I got a very grumpy letter from the PA Department of Agriculture, who oversees summer camps.

This direct, dare I say ‘rude’, letter included the following:

“Mr. Kelly, you are on record as the owner and manager of the property located at 210 Woods Road in Lakewood. You are also listed as the lake ‘warden’ of Sly Lake as your neighbors, Camp Nesher, are owned by a non-profit. Our records state the last draining of Sly Lake was March 31, 1973. You must rectify before the summer or you may not operate this summer as a camp for children.”

Lost and Found

So… drain the lake we have. And let me tell you: the discoveries have been epic.

Here’s what we’ve found so far:

• Twenty-three walkie talkies. Fourteen had names on them including six from a ‘Luis.’
• Remains of two sunk motor boats. And here I thought Director Kate started the craze in 2016. Turns out, she wasn’t alone in her affinity to sink boats.
• A time capsule. This was intriguing. It was from the early ‘80s and had a note: “I hope they never drain this lake.” Well… I hope these people come back to our Alumni WeeqEnd this summer. We’ll have an interesting talk….
• A hilarious note stuck in a ziplock bag with rocks in it. It read, “Dear Cropsie, would you please return my retainer if you find it? Thanks!”
• The remains of a massive shark. (SEE CAMPERS! I’ve been telling you there’s a shark in the lake for YEARS! Now, I get to say ‘I told you so.’)
• Multiple old canoes and ‘funyacks’ – you can see those in the picture.
• Lots of tie-dye shirts and bell-bottom pants. Hm….
• The last find was incredible: an underwater city for beavers. I feel pretty bad about destroying an entire ‘city’ built over what must have been 50 years. But, the State required it. So… off they go.*

*Don’t worry.  We relocated all of the beavers to a new lake that borders our friends at Camp Starlight. They’ll be so excited to find out their beaver population has tripled over the winter!

Ready for the Summer

We are now in the process of re-filling the lake. Thankfully, there are a number of springs under the lake and the winter melt has increased the flow of water.

We should be totally fine by the time our staff arrive and the fish – who are all safely in tanks throughout CIT bunks 37 and 38 (and Lakeview) – will be happy to return home.

Well – I’m happy we’ll be in compliance for the State and that things will be ready to go for the summer. Hopefully, I’ll be around for the next draining and that it’ll happen on the same day: April 1st.

The post Lake Maintenance appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

Kate and I have spent a lot of time researching AI to figure out how it can best help us at Weequahic. We are excited to let you know about how we’ll be using this new tool at camp.

Improved ordering and inventory control

We’ve got a LOT of t-shirts and gear we use each summer. Keeping tabs on our current inventory and placing the correct orders has been a challenging to this point. AI will help us tighten up and streamline the process.

Improved Workflows for Program

While the campers love our daily program – they get to pick but enjoy the activity only with their age groups – it takes a lot of work to set up and run on the backend. AI has already reduced the workload on our programming team and we expect the time savings to continue.

The Nightly News from Cole

Yes, this has been a wonderful labor of love from Director Cole, let’s face it – he’s getting old. So, we’ve trained an AI bot on all of his during the summer ‘nightly news’ posts. The new bot will do the majority of the writing, taking into account the meals, Evening Activities and more. Cole will review it before posting… but we’re sure it’ll be close enough.

Photos and Videos

We are expecting the ‘image engines’ to be powerful enough this summer to create great photos and videos of your kids playing, waterskiing and laughing together. So, rather than hiring videographers and photographers, we’ll just let AI create images for you. You’ll never know the difference! Lastly…

Office Management & Phone Calls

Yes, Office Manager Morgan is a superstar. She’ll get to shine even more as we’ve moved to an automated answering service that will be able to handle the vast majority of your questions during the summer. We’ve even trained it to sound just like Morgan! Anything the system cannot answer adequately will be passed on for Cole to answer… when he’s not waterskiing.

PHEW… so much new tech and we feel we’ve only scratched the surface. Perhaps we’ll be able to run camp with an AI staff? We’ll see. Can’t wait to see everyone at camp this summer!

Oh, and enjoy tomorrow… April 1^st.

(PS – if you’ve not already figured it out, this is an April Fool’s post like a few before it…. Hope we got you for a little bit!)

The post AI at Summer Camp appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

Camp was easily Mac’s happiest place. He’d start each summer excitedly sniffing the air as we pulled onto Woods Road following the 13-hour trek from Georgia. He’d bark and howl and run all over camp. All of the animals who had called Weequahic home for the previous few months took notice – the “alpha” was back.

Once the kids arrived, Mac spent each morning waiting patiently at the flagpole for the day to start. As soon as we dismissed, he headed straight for his favorite spot: the fishing dock.  He loved to challenge the campers to see who’d get the fish off the hook first. Sadly for the fish, Mac won a few of those contests.

He was a big fan of the UPS driver who delivered treats along with the boxes and an even bigger fan of Chef Daniel and his crew, especially when they forgot to put the trash up into the ‘Mac-proof’ bins. His true love was the attention the campers provided in buckets.

A few prospective families refused to come to a camp with dog allowed to roam.  With a smile on my face, I’d always reply that I understood and that, considering Mac was way more popular than me, he’d be staying just as he was: free and trusted. Why didn’t he ever leave camp? There was too much love and too much to do.

When not traipsing around camp, Mac would be found in Kate’s office or my own. He was the first to give a tail-wagging greeting to any camper or staff who walked in, instantly putting everyone at ease. Many a free play, he was found in the company of a home-sick camper, barking at the video drone, or, more recently, gallivanting around with the Nugent’s dog, Gus. At flag lowering, he was ready to ‘help’ any camper who miss-judged their birthday cupcake catch.

At Lights Out, Mac would follow Kate through the younger girls’ bunks saying goodnight. What could be better than a high-five from Camp Director Kate followed by a sniff and nuzzle from Mac?

While he started camp with a huge grin, he ended it each summer by hiding from us, refusing to leave. Just like our campers, he spent the first few days back home moping, mourning the loss of the connection and community of Weequahic. He truly loved being at camp.

We’ll be sad to miss our four-legged friend. He’s been a big part of our family for a long time. Rather than mourn too long, we’ll do our best to move to the ‘celebration’ phase of remembrance. We’ve so many memories to rejoice over and will remain ever grateful for his time with us.

God speed, Augustus McCrae Kelly. You were a damn good dog.

The post Sad News about Camp Dog Mac appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

Camp Weequahic, with all the bumps in the road of 2020, we still have a great deal for which to be thankful. Here are a few campers that will help get our own ‘thankfuls’ from last year and set them up for the next!

The post Happy Thanksgiving 2020! appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

Words like fun, friends, tradition, s’more, and color war normally come up first. The ‘hero’ moniker is reserved for those people who go above and beyond, who help and serve, who overcome, lead, and teach.

It’s been a year of heroes, has it not? Our front-line healthcare professionals certainly jump out when thinking of the term ‘hero’ in relation to 2020. Many teachers who went above and beyond the call of their normal duty to educate and engage their students from a distance. Those who peacefully and fervently raised their voices against some of the ills present in our society. These and many more rose to the lofty height of heroes.

Yes, there have certainly been some who could easily be described as villains, too. I choose to focus on the positive, though, in hopes of instilling a drive and desire toward the light.

Hero’s Journey

You may or may not have heard about the ‘Hero’s Journey.’ It’s a phrase coined by Joseph Campbell, a teacher and writer who researched historical and current day myths from around the world. Heroes, to Professor Campbell, go through a similar journey no matter who they are or from whence they come.

(Here is a great, short video that explains the whole idea from TedEd.)

Here’s the long and short of it: a hero is called to an adventure, something to battle and overcome. The process includes finding a mentor or guide, leaving what they know behind, bumping up (repeatedly) against challenges that require the hero to grow and change, a major crisis, victory over that crisis, and the return to home a changed person.

From a summer camp perspective, this actually fits beautifully with the camp counselor experience. It’s hard to describe just how much our young staff grow and change as they learn through their summer with us.

Sure, it’s incredibly fun. But it’s also really, really hard. Crisis does come for each of them at some point. They all hit a wall whether it be ‘out of a comfort zone,’ patience, not knowing how to help or something else. When they overcome that crisis, they leave camp different: more confident, competent, empathetic, patient, and humble.

Summer Camp’s Journey

From my perspective as a camp owner, I can honestly tell you ‘camp,’ if you think of it as a person, is certainly on its own Hero’s Journey right now.

Having missed a summer – something Weequahic has never done through wars, recessions, and previous pandemics – we’ve left our normal routines of ‘home.’ We’ve got wonderful guides who are helping through the next parts of our journey. There are challenges we’ve not faced before. And, we see the light of Summer 202One and know we will arrive back ‘home’ a better camp for our campers, staff and families back home. We’ll certainly be changed… for the better!

Summer 202One Theme: Heroes

Having gone through this year as we did, I feel it is time to focus on heroes: their journey, their questions, their challenges. Of course, we’ll explore how they express gratitude, determine their attitude, and develop their courage throughout the process.

Can we all be heroes? Yes! Why? Because we all have challenges to confront and overcome, wonderful mentors ready to lend a helping hand, and the need to learn, and grow and change in order to face the next challenge – whatever that may be – with GAC.

From a camp perspective, we are journeying off to a new world. Weequahic will need a whole bunch of heroes to help make next summer incredible. Want to join up? It’s going to be AWESOME.

The post The Start of Our Summer 202One Journey appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

Now, you may be thinking, ‘Cole, you are a white, southern guy – what the heck do you know or have experienced to make you a person who should comment?’

The answer is: very little. I know I’m luckier than 99% of the world. I also know that I’m a part of a community that, for a few weeks each summer, connects people from all walks of life, all socio-economic backgrounds, and dozens and dozens of different perspectives. Please take the following in the latter vein, that of someone trying to listen, learn, and help.

Race at Camp Weequahic

I spent time over the past week speaking with some of our past, present and future staff who are people of color. They were so open, patient and honest with me. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate their time and courage to speak with me in that way.

We’ve not had conversations about race at Camp Weequahic because that’s not what camp is about. To me, Weequahic, at its very core, is about living out this one truth: we are all worthy of love and respect. No matter where you come from, what you look like, how much money you have or anything else.

“If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another.”

Mother Teresa

At camp, for a few short, wonderful weeks, we get a sense of ‘belonging to one another.’

There are no distractions. Life is much simpler here underneath the pines for those fleeting moments. And, because our entire staff decides to follow one mission – that of creating an amazing experience for everyone we meet through gratitude, attitude, and courage – we get close to erasing everything that could divide us in the outside world.

Outside of camp, I fear Mother Teresa’s admonition hits a little too close to home. We’ve got problems in our outside world. This is nothing new. We always have problems. You can’t live together as humans and not have problems. Heck, you can’t live by yourself and not have problems.

A House On Fire

Earlier this year, I wrote a note about our small neighborhood. In relationship to the Earth, Weequahic is a tiny neighborhood. We’ve got several small houses, play areas, a nice lake and more. If one of our bunks were on fire, we’d all work together to help, wouldn’t we? We’d get everyone out safely, care for them, and rebuild something even better.

Well, compared to our galaxy, the Milky Way, our Earth is an even smaller ‘neighborhood’ than Weequahic is to the Earth. As far as we know, we are the only humans for millions and millions of lightyears. We’ve only got each other.

Weequahic, one of our neighborhood houses is on fire. It’s been smoldering for years. Because of the repugnant, brutal actions of a few, that house is now burning. Are we going to help put out the flames and work together to help rebuild towards a brighter future? Or are we going to ignore and just focus on our own?

Many people are angry right now. I’d like you to try something: think of anger as pain made public. When you approach it this way, you begin to open up to listening in hopes of understanding and working side by side rather than at odds. You begin to treat the other as you would want to be treated. You begin to find common ground on which you can both stand.

Moving Forward

So, how do we, the eyes of this camp director, move forward to a better, more just world? To be honest, I’m not sure. However, after asking questions of those I respect and love, here are a few ideas that I think may help.

First, recognize we have members of our human family who are in pain right now.

Second, listen with empathy.

That is harder than it sounds for many of us because it requires us to be what’s called emotionally intelligent. Before you can get to that point, though, you have to know how talk about what you are feeling. You have to be emotionally literate.

This is harder when we are stressed, out of our routines or anxious.

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling that way right now. How about you? While we may be in a situation across the US where these feelings are widespread, the Covid situation doesn’t give us a pass for not doing all we can to care for those around us.

The good news about this approach – recognizing and listening for understanding – is that it’ll help you grow. This is something we all want to do.

The bad news is the growth will be uncomfortable.

And it should be. You can’t grow when you are stuck in the same place doing the same things. When you want to grow a muscle or your endurance or your abilities on the piano or with public speaking, you practice and make mistakes and learn and repeat. It’s challenging!

Do you think raising your concerns, your fears, your pain is comfortable? I know many of our campers who have gone through the very natural missing home feelings at camp hide those feelings from their counselors, their division heads, and me. It’s natural – these are uncomfortable feelings. You imagine the conversation about it will be even more uncomfortable.

Weequahic, growth only comes from learning and moving through uncomfortable times. The campers and staff members who have the courage to put a voice to their concerns, a voice to their pain are the ones who come through it better. Those who have the courage to listen for understanding with an open and grateful heart will learn as well.

Tie Your Shoes

Finally, we’ve got to get up, tie our shoes and do something about it.

We, the entire human family, need to

• Ask questions and listen.
• Serve and help and lend a hand.
• Fight (peacefully) for what is just, what is good, and what is right.
• Show that we share an important common ground – that we are all worthy of love and respect – through our actions and words.

I cannot truly walk in your shoes and experience all that you know and feel. You can’t walk in mine. But, we are better, as a human family, when we strive work and play and learn together. We become something more than just a collection of individuals going in the same direction. We become a community and start to belong to one another.

Weequahic’s Challenge to You

Be grateful for those giving voice to their pain. They are giving you a gift and its not an easy one to share.

To those putting a voice to pain, strive to be grateful for those who are listening for understanding. This will not be easy for you and it’s no less important. We’ve got to meet somewhere in between and work together in order to move forward.

And, difficult as it may be, we must all be grateful for the vast majority of women and men who protect and serve in all the right ways – with patience, fortitude, courage and justice.

Choose an attitude of humility, patience, generosity and hope. With this as our base, we can work together to make the world a bit more like camp.

Finally, develop your courage to peacefully and purposefully strive to make the world around you a more just and kind place.

Build a Bridge

The headlines will soon fall away. The media coverage will find something else to bark about. What will be left are those who work on a day-to-day basis to build bridges and bring people forward. Or not. We get to choose.

Camp Weequahic, let’s tie our shoes and put some GAC into the world around you. Do this often enough, you’ll change your home, your class, your team, your group. If we all do it, the effect will magnify. Start small, aim big!

The post Important, Uncomfortable & Necessary Growth appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

The hard part about the future is that we can’t predict it. Who would have predicted our online campfires, physical distancing, and fear caused by this outbreak? When we think about the future, because we are positive people, we normally think about improvements to the life around us.

And, why wouldn’t we? As a human society, terrible poverty has fallen dramatically. The advances in science and medicine has been astounding. People are thinking more and more about helping those around them as well as the earth itself.

We can’t predict the future. But, we can influence it.

Hope Isn’t Enough

If you want to become the best singer in your school, you would envision that future first. How it would make you feel. Being up on stage having finished an amazing piece and hearing the crowd roar their approval. As you think about that wonderful future, you hope you’ll get there.

If you want to become the best baseball player in your league, you’d imagine diving catches, sharp base hits, stolen bases, and cheers from the stands. When you think about that wonderful future, you hope you’ll get there.

But hope is not enough. If you want to get from wherever you are to where you want to go, you’ve got to make some changes. And change can really hard. It normally means giving something up or changing your focus or modifying your behavior.

What’s Important?

One of my favorite teachers spent some time with me one day after a practice. I was upset – things were not going as I wanted them. He asked me where I wanted to take my golf career. To college, I answered.

“Great,” he said, “that’s a wonderful goal.” And then he started asking me how I spent my time.

How many hours a day are you sleeping? Studying? Reading outside of school? Spending time with your family? Practicing? Playing video games? (Yes, there were video games all the way back when I was a kid, too.)

He wrote all of my answers down. I was always honest with this coach – I knew he had my best in his mind and would support me no matter what.

“Ok, here’s how many hours a week you’d sleep. Here’s how many hours of studying…” and on down the list. It turns out, I was spending as many hours playing video games as I was practicing golf. (And both were more than I was studying….)

“Cole,” he said, “I’ve always found that tracking how I spend my time and my money is the best way to see what’s most important to me. Do you think spending as much time playing video games as practicing your short game will help you become a college golfer? Do you think sleeping in every weekend will help you draw closer to your family or your faith?”

He smiled, told me to make another 50 short putts and head home. I got the message and changed my behavior: more time reading, more time practicing, and about 10% as much video games.

Handling Disappointment

That story in my life ended as I wanted it. I changed enough behaviors and beliefs in order to play golf in college. I gave up a lot, too, but the relationships and memories I gained were more than worth the trade.

But what happens when we can’t influence the future to our liking? What happens when things out of our control go wrong, go against what’s most important right here and now for you?

Well, everybody handles disappointment and grief differently. Some people get to work. Others get sad. A few get mad. Most of us, though, go through a whole range of emotions. And, you know what? That’s completely ok.

We are supposed to. Believe it or not, it’s actually good for you to feel those things and even better to, when you are ready, talk about them with someone you love and loves you back. These emotions won’t be minimized or excused away. They need to be confronted, talked about and processed. Like all things in life, the only way out of those feelings is going through them.

This Too Shall Pass

When I think about disappointment and loss, I often think of King Solomon’s ring. If you aren’t familiar, King Solomon was thought to be the wisest king of Israel. Legend has it that one of his rings had a saying that was true no matter the situation: this too shall pass.

Let me break down that sentence a bit: This – whatever is happening right now – will change into something else. We can cheat in cards and in video games but there is no cheating time. ‘Too’ – everything changes. The more you fight the change, the harder it will be on you. A better way is to be like water and flow with it, carving your own channels over time. ‘Shall’ – not maybe, not possibly, ‘shall’ – it will. ‘Pass’ – move on, pass by, change.

This sentence is really useful when things are going great. It’ll keep you humble. It’ll remind you that things change and you’ve got to change with it. Do you think Weequahic had to change much as we grew from 120 kids to 750 in 8 summers? Oh, yes, we have to change every year.

It’s also an important sentence to remember when times are scary or dark or troublesome. Those times will pass. We don’t know when, but they will. There is hope in that message.  

Our Decision Making Process

Speaking of changes, let me address the very large elephant in the room. Many of our friends in Wayne County cancelled their summer sessions today. I know the decision was terribly hard for them. While we respect their decision, we have not yet made one about Summer 2020.

As I said in my email earlier today, safety is our most important concern. And this concern involves our campers social and emotional health as well as their physical health. Being cooped up for so many weeks is hard on our kids. Camp, I believe, could be a wonderful respite for them.

We read the same headlines that you do. They are certainly concerning. We’ve been reading studies. We know that while a very small portion of children have been affected, there is a much lower risk for them. Could sleeping in a bunk increase the possibility of spreading a virus. Yes. AND, if we can test everyone before they arrive, keep our staff at Weequahic for two weeks prior to camp, and keep everyone at camp the whole time, we may be able to mitigate that risk.

We’ve been talking with our camp doctors a bunch – I think they are actually tired of hearing from me. There have been multiple conversations with many others in the field. We’ve been on testing calls, research calls, and more.

We are still waiting for guidance from the American Camp Association. Some of that has come out today. The rest will be out over the weekend. We are waiting to hear from the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health. I’ve heard news from them will be coming out ‘in days.’

When and How We’ll Decide

Kate and I feel obligated to do everything we can to provide our campers and staff a safe summer. We’ll continue to dig and learn and think creatively. If, after reading through the guidelines, we feel we can’t make Weequahic great and as safe as possible this summer, we’ll let you know. If we feel we can, we’ll do that too, in a very detailed manner.

We want camp for our kids and our families and our staff. We just need a little more time to see if we can make it all work. Thanks for being patient, flexible and hopeful with along the way.

The post Influencing the Future appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

It’s good when you are generous and kind to a friend. It’s even more so when you treat someone you don’t know. What’s the very best? When you treat everyone that way, consistently – even those people you don’t like or feel like you shouldn’t.

Doing so takes courage. It requires us to be uncomfortable and, possibly, afraid of the consequences.

Learning a Lesson

When I was a senior in high school, I got a lead part in our three-act play. I was known at school as the preppy, conservative golfer. The young lady playing the female lead – and my character’s love interest – was a liberal, artsy, ‘rebel’ in my opinion. We both got some grief from our respective groups about having to work together. I was not happy… and neither was she.

We were neither generous nor kind to each other over the first few weeks. Then, grudgingly, we started to appreciate one another. On the final night of actual show, we stood on stage accepting the applause while holding each other closely. We had become good friends who appreciated each other, despite our differences.

I often think back and wonder how much better the play would have been had we both had the courage to be kind and generous to each other.

The Heart of Courage

The word courage is an interesting one and one that is linked very closely to the ‘Heart of Weequahic’ video we showed right before this campfire talk. The best person I know of to speak about this is Dr. Brene Brown:

“Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant ‘To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.’ Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences — good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as ‘ordinary courage.’”

Isn’t that great? I love how Dr. Brown drills down to the essence of things and puts these big ideas in such a way that we can apply them to our lives right now.

Ordinary courage is having the courage to speak honestly and openly about who we are and our experiences. It’s also about listening and accepting the gift of someone else doing the same.

My Heart Right Now

I’ll take a moment and speak from my heart.

These last five weeks have been the most difficult of my camping career. The uncertainty is the worst part: will the Pennsylvania Depart of Health allow us to open? What will the American Camp Association and CDC guidelines for summer camps require? How will our campers, families and staff members handle this experience and the decisions for this summer? Will we start on time, a few days or weeks late, or not at all? What will this do to our campers, our families, our staff, our camp and our full-time team?

I go through these incredible swings of emotions every day: I get a piece of news that leads me to think we are going to start on time and think this will be the most incredible summer ever. A few hours later, I get another piece of news that puts doubt into my heart.

Kate, Sue, Dana, Scrappy, Cammie, Jerry, John and I make plans, and the more plans, and then more again. Everything we are doing right now centers on two things: safety and flexibility. Thankfully, our suppliers feel the same way. Both Amerasport and CampTrucking will offer full refunds if camp doesn’t happen. The ACA is allowing medical forms to be filled out within the past 24 months. PackMyRx – our new camper medication fulfillment company – would send the medications home rather than to camp.

This Summer

Will we open? I don’t know. Are we planning to open? ABSOLUTELY! Are we coming up with a ton of ‘just in case’ plans? Of course. We’ll all know more in the next three weeks. As soon as we know which plan we can put in place, I’ll let all of our families know.

One other piece of my heart to share: thank you. Speaking on behalf of the team, I’m so grateful for the support, patience and love our families and staff have shown over the past several weeks. We know y’all want camp. We know that you all know that we want camp. We are going to do everything in our power to put have us all back safely at Weequahic this summer.

Whatever happens, I know our Weequahic family will face the situation with a grateful outlook, an intentionally chosen attitude, and the ordinary courage required to share our hearts. We all love you. Be safe, patient, and hopeful. We’ll all get through this… together.

The post Speaking from the Heart appeared first on Camp Weequahic.

The film reminded me of the many wars fought throughout time on this small planet. They were waged for different reasons: power, resources, influence, retribution, etc. The one common factor: one set of humans and their tools against another set of humans and their corresponding tools.

We humans are now locked in another battle. This one, though, is different. Rather than it being against each other, it’s all of us against something that doesn’t care where we are from, what we look like, what car we drive, etc. COVID-19 can affect us all.

Being Neighborly

A teacher once taught a lesson about loving our neighbors. He did so in dramatic fashion, making a member of a despised culture the ‘hero.’

Here’s the short version: A man had been beaten up, robbed and left for dead. Many people who were well thought of in ‘their neighborhood’ walked by, excusing their lack of lending assistance for multiple reasons. Then a member of a despised culture stopped, showed mercy, humility, and love by helping the man and setting him up to be healed with no thought of repayment.

The punchline: the person from a despised ‘neighborhood’ had been the true neighbor. He’d loved the injured as he did himself regardless of anything else – race, creed, color or religion.

Our Neighborhood

How big is your neighborhood? At camp, we’ve got a fun bunch of us. But if we compare our camp with all the camps in the US, it’s a very, very small neighborhood. 

Our Earth is pretty big, right? It’s measured at 24,901 miles around the equator. However, when you compare the Earth to our solar system, it’s pretty small. Compare it to our larger galaxy, it’s smaller still.

For comparison sake, it would take you about 45 hours to circumnavigate the Earth on a plane. To get to Pluto and back, it would take 25 years and a really big rocket ship. To edge of our galaxy and back? That’s currently estimated at 220 million years.  

So, when you compare it to the larger context, our Earth – our neighborhood – is pretty small. Mr. Fred Rogers touched on this a lot over his many decades of service. He didn’t care what you looked like, where you were from, or what was in your bank account. You were his neighbor and he treated you with kindness, patience, respect, and love. Period.

In other words, we are all neighbors. And, until we find life off world, we are the only neighbors we’ve got.

Our Current Battle

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a virus in the neighborhood. We’ve got to work together to stamp it out.

A powerful politician once admonished his ‘troops’ not to let a crisis go to waste. Whether you agreed or not with his politics or timing is irrelevant. This is one such crisis but not in the terms he meant.

This is not an opportunity to place blame. It’s an opportunity to realize that all of us in this tiny little neighborhood are in a fight against something that threatens us all. The good news? There are very simple and powerful ways to defeat it.

First, remain calm and patient. We humans have gotten through much worse. Secondly, wash your hands really well. If you aren’t sure how, here you go. The third is stay away from other people as much as you can for the time being, especially if you feel crummy.

Campers, we are most worried about those with challenged immune systems and the elderly. It would be neighborly of us to do our best to reduce the spread of this disease any way we can. (Here’s a great infographic that explains things well to young and old people alike.)

Weequahic Neighbors

So, while this time is certainly strange for us, it’s also an opportunity to remember that we humans, despite our differences, are all neighbors. Let’s decide to be good ones for each other.

Heck, if enough of us work at this long enough, maybe everyone will start acting the same way. When that happens, our Earth will feel a little bit more like a summer at Weequahic. Talk with you next week.

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The map reminded me of a dinner I enjoyed with my younger brother many moons ago. He was spending a year abroad, studying Italian in Sienna, Italy.

I have three distinct memories of my first day with him: the ribollita at a small café outside Il Palio, the after affects of my first (and last) espresso and eating dinner in his apartment… which was older than the United States of America!

Camp – Past and Present

When you put into that context, Camp Weequahic is not old. Founded in 1953 by Mr. and Mrs. Al Lustig, Weequahic grew steadily over the ensuing decades. The camp weathered many financial storms over that time with rising interest rates, an epic flood or two and many other challenges.

Not many communities or businesses have lasted as long as Camp Weequahic. Kate and I are proud to be holding up the torch that was so ably started by the Lustig and Seffer families as we move Weequahic into the future.

There is a lot that is new at our old camp: a new website with a fancy virtual tour, new videos, and more bells and whistles. We’ve got a new waterpark being installed soon. The Health Center has a new exam room and medical storage facility. The oldest boys (finally!) have a new bathroom.

And yet, with all the new, it doesn’t change the majesty and importance of the old. The Tribal and Olympic competitions end the sessions. Campfire is enjoyed every Friday night. Our counselors and staff do all they can to care for our campers… who come to have a blast.

These traditions were started long before Kate and I arrived and will continue (we hope) long after we’ve retired. There is usefulness in good traditions, those that bind us together in positive ways and create a feeling of being a part of something larger than yourself. And, there are some traditions that have outlived their usefulness. (Campfire behind gymnastics, anyone?) As many have said before me, without change, there is no growth. 

So, yes, there is some old and some new at camp, just as there is in your life. We are excited to keep that balance rolling on through at Weequahic. 

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