I was nine years old the first time I boarded the bus to Camp Whittle. With a duffel bag bigger than me and no idea what I was heading into. That was 14 years ago. I’m 23 now, and I never really left. Since that first summer, I’ve come back every year, as a camper, a counselor, a director, and have spent <\/p>\n\n\n\n
several summers working as staff. And every single year, I’ve left a little more sure of who I am. If you asked me why I keep going back, why I\u2019ve spent fourteen summers in the same place when I could have been doing anything else, I wouldn\u2019t give you a list of reasons. I\u2019d point you to a feeling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lake in the afternoon. Campfire skits that had the whole camp laughing. Songs you somehow still know every word to years later. The specific kind of tired you feel after a full day outside with people you love. There is nothing else like it. There never has been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing about camp is that it gives kids something the rest of the world doesn’t, a place to figure out who they are when no one’s watching. No grades. No social pressure. Just nature, community, and the space to grow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there are the friendships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is something that happens when you take away the phones, the followers, the carefully curated versions of ourselves we carry around every day, and just put kids together with nowhere to be and nothing to prove. What’s left is something rare. Something real. The friendships I made at Camp Whittle are the most genuine ones I have. Not because we had the most in common, but because we had nothing to hide behind. You learn who someone actually is when you’re sharing a cabin, losing at capture the flag, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
and stumbling through a campfire skit together. Those are the people who become your lifelong friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if I’m being honest, the moments that have stayed with me longest aren’t the big ones. They’re the small ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Raggers program is one of Camp Whittle’s oldest traditions, a character building program that asks campers, year after year, who do you want to be? I got my first rag at 12. Years later, I was the one standing on the other side of that moment, tying a rag for a camper, looking them in their eyes the way someone once looked at me. That was the first time I truly understood what camp had been quietly building in me all along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the first year I got to help plan Songfest. The dance. The carnival. Getting to design the experience for younger campers the way older campers had once designed it for me. Watching a camper completely lose themselves in a game I helped put together, that kid had no idea I was involved, and it didn’t matter. That was the point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Camp teaches you to give without needing the credit. To lead without needing the spotlight. To pour into people just because it’s the right thing to do. I didn’t learn that anywhere else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I volunteer now because I was that kid once. Nervous. New. Watching the bus pull away and wondering if I’d find my place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found it. Completely. And I have spent every summer since trying to make sure the next kid does too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you have a child who hasn’t been to camp yet, I want you to know what you’d be giving them. Not just a fun summer. A place where they get to figure out who they are without the noise of everyday life telling them. Where they make friends who feel like family by the end of the week, and stay that way long after the bus ride home. Where they come back a little braver, a little more themselves, and a little more sure of what they’re capable of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Camp builds the kind of person your child deserves to become. Not just for a week, for life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One summer can do that. I’ve watched it happen hundreds of times. It happened to me first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the spirit of camping,\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan Finkelstein\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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