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!
Camp News & Blog
Let’s Do the Work Together
There is a valuable push in the camp industry to become more welcoming to people of color. We support this ideal and wanted to describe our approach.
At Camp Weequahic, we do the work – through our hiring, training and programming – so that every person feels as though they belong, that they are a valued part of something greater than themselves. This is the whole point of camp: to build a community that no one wants to leave at summer’s end. There are two important ingredients: a committed staff of diverse individuals and an engaged, excited group of campers.
For our staff, as long as you see the world through our lens of ‘gratitude, attitude and courage’ and have the potential of making our community and culture stronger, we are excited to work alongside you. We seek out team members that come from different places, backgrounds, and experiences. As long as we share the same mission, our diverse staff makes the Weequahic community better for each other and our campers.
For our campers, as long as you are excited to make new friendships, build new experiences, and approach each day and each person with open arms, we are excited to play alongside you. We are happy to have campers from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds with whom we enjoy the summer.
Certainly, we don’t get it right for every person who walks through our gates. And, we learn from our mistakes and work hard to get better each year. Like so many others, we celebrate how a diverse group of people can come form something amazing: a community of belonging.
Let’s Do the Work Together
Early this June, I spent some time with a handful of our past, present and future Black staff. Their honest conversation was wonderful and led to a blog post after the experience called Important, Uncomfortable & Necessary Growth. Having read the post again, I still feel strongly it represents who we are and how we’ll move forward.
If we all do our small parts, we’ll have a big effect. Weequahic will continue to do our part to ‘create amazing’ for our diverse and excited community. Our hope is that each Weequahic camper and staff member will take the lessons of gratitude, choosing your attitude, building courage, and being kind out into their own small pockets of the world.
That’s how lasting change happens: small, consistent, intentional moves. Keep doing your part Weequahic.
A Hero’s Lesson About ‘Us’
Many examples of heroes put forth so far have been fictional. However, there are so many examples in our very real world. You just have to look a little bit.
I was ‘introduced’ to a new hero of mine just a few months ago. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief Rabbi of the UK from 1991 to 2013, gave a wonderful 1.5 hour interview on the Tim Ferriss podcast. It’s well worth the listen.
Why? First of all, the man’s voice is hypnotic. But the message and the stories were captivating and inspiring. In a very short time, Rabbi Lord Sacks has become one of my heroes who kindly, thoughtfully and courageously speaks to what is right and good (in the oldest sense of both words) and includes all.
Sadly, Rabbi Lord Sacks passed away earlier this week after battling cancer. He led an amazing life and left behind an incredible legacy, one which I’ll continue to study.
Me vs. Us
In his 2017 TED Talk, Rabbi Lord Sacks spoke of danger of focusing on ‘self’, ‘me’ and ‘I’ rather than on ‘us’ and ‘we.’ He speaks of ‘us’ in three ways: relationship, identity and responsibility. If you’d care to watch or listen, it is twelve minutes well spent:
At Weequahic, we are blessed to be a community of very different people – different backgrounds, ages, faiths and cultures. This makes us better.
At Weequahic, we all know what drives us: to create an amazing experience for everyone we meet through gratitude, attitude and courage. Our values guide everything we do each day.
Finally, at Weequahic, our counselors and staff realize that by working together to care for our campers, they are also caring for each other. The really cool part is that the campers pick up on this idea and start imitating the whole process.
Thank you, Rabbi Lord Sacks for all the good you put into this world. You’ve been a hero to many and an example for all. May we all learn from his wisdom.
