They say camp is for the campers...

Coming to camp and being a camper was the best, no doubt, and from 9 to 15 you create friends and learn how to be a human. You learn new skills, cheers, conflict resolution, and ways to get to the waterfront. You talk about your camp friends at school like they are the coolest people in the world. You request your friends year after year to be in your cabin and you add some new friends along the way making the daisy chain big enough to fill a whole cabin. You sob at circle of happiness your last year of camp because you think its over... but it's just beginning.

Being on staff is way better than being a camper ever was. Its a ton of work, but its also a ton of play. We were fostering the youths, teaching the skills and keeping kids safe. We did the drag when we could barely swim ourselves. But how many times did we play around in the basement of the dining hall, take a shorty to Friendly's, join book club at night, and hang out WAY too late at the OD fire pit watching scenes from Stomp The Yard and trying to recreate it while your campers drift away to sleep in the cabin. We'd giggle and walk along fern gully with our campers back from meals, creating the magic along the way.

As the summers fade and just become a season, Camp love and nostalgia only grows stronger. You start to miss using the moonlight to get around instead of the street lights, you wish for something as simple as a walkie talkie to be important again. You sing to backstreet boys in the car by yourself on your commute instead of with 200 screaming girls and women. But then you remember all the things in your life now that camp helped you do.

You take your skills from camp and bring them to work and succeed. You go out to brunch with your cabin mate, you live with your Aides sister in your 20s, and go abroad to see an international staff member who you bonded with that one summer. You have friends who send you flowers and soup on your worst day, even if you havent spoken in years. You can sweep any floor, you can fix any broken thing, you can sing any song and create something amazing from nothing. It's those things and those people who carry you through to today. I have watched my camp friends get married, have babies, and hopefully, one day, we will be sharing a corner of the Senior Ball field together on Gibson weekend.

Giving back to camp is a way for that 9 year old to have a roommate in their 20's, a bridesmaid at their wedding, and an interview for their dream job. Being a camper is just one of the many forms of the magic, first you receive it, then as a staff member you give it, and as an adult you gift it because without camp, you are not the person you are today.

Give to OGDOG.