This season unsurprisingly has us reflecting a lot on gratitude and giving, and I’m particularly amazed by all of the gratitude-worthy camp happenings in the last month. In today’s blog, I want to keep it simple and share some thankful-worthy highlights from Runoia.
CRAO Campership Funds
Perhaps one of my very favorite parts of the year, and certainly of my role at camp, is the honor of sending acceptance letters for CRAO Campership funds to recipient campers’ families. This year, the CRAO has supported 17 campers with tuition and additional riders with lesson funding from the CRAO Pam Cobb Heuberger Campership Riding Fund. The generosity of our CRAO and alumnae directly impact campers and our community by opening our gates to more campers each year.
The CRAO’s generosity and support is annual, and if you are able, we invite you to make a donation to the CRAO to support the camp experience for future campers for years to come. The gratitude expressed in our families’ acceptances of their awards is unparalleled and attributable to gift-makers like you.
Giving Tuesday and Supporting our Community
Yesterday, November 29th, was Giving Tuesday and Runoia stepped out once again to donate directly back to the Maine community. A donation of 200 pairs of new underwear was made on behalf of our campers and community to Maine Needs – a grassroots organization located in Portland, Maine, which focuses its efforts on providing clothing, hygiene products, and other necessities to those ‘starting life over from scratch.’
Did you miss Giving Tuesday this year? It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing – we invite you to donate in your home community, explore Giving Tuesday’s suggestions, or make a charitable donation to the CRAO.
Our Staff
There is never a time during which we are not grateful for our staff – their form of giving is in time, effort, and love for our community. We are especially grateful to have already hired 60+ staff before December for the 2023 season. We are taking advantage of an early hiring season by already connecting and getting to know one-another from a distance – in some cases, entire oceans away!
But what has me feeling an extra glimmer of gratitude for our staff are the responses I’ve received to our staff social media feature survey. In case you missed it, you can catch a new featured staff member every couple of weeks from now all the way to camp on our Instagram and Facebook pages. I can’t selfishly keep these wholesome responses to myself, so here are some highlights from this survey to leave you with a warmed heart:
“[I’m returning to Runoia because of] Amazing connections at my home away from home.”
“I love working with staff to help them be their best, shape the next possible staff members (CITs), and still get so many opportunities to just have fun with the campers!”
“Great pond and everyone at Runoia have a special place in my heart.”
“I love being able to introduce kids who have little to no experience with horses to an amazing sport and community. I also love seeing the more advanced kids skills grow alongside their confidence as the summer progresses.”
“I love teaching sailing because every summer I get to work with an amazing bunch of campers and staff who love to have fun and are just as passionate about sailing as I am!”
“It is not as scary as it seems, I was super overwhelmed last year and everything felt so new but just trust that it’s going to be epic.”“I love riding, especially at camp, and I want to help other people learn to love it as much as I do!”“It looks like such an amazing camp and the staff that I have talked to so far have been so kind and lovely to talk to.”
“I love being a part of this community and I’m already counting down the days until the summer!”
