Category: Counselors

Camp Warmth

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Izzy with camperOn a trip to the Midwest, I was struck by two camp connections I encountered. I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a fairly unlikely place to happen upon Maine camp devotees. Here an enclave of Runoia fanatics created by Camp Runoia’s Director of Equestrian Programs exist. While visiting new families and meeting staff last weekend, I had two striking conversations with two different people.

The first was a camp mom. Her daughter is a quiet and introverted person who made a huge leap to attend sleepaway summer camp in Maine. With the intrigue of riding often and being in a friendly place where she would be encouraged to try new things in a supportive place, she nervously arrived last summer to camp. In her quiet way, it was hard for us extroverts to know if she was having a good time – when asked she shyly replied “yes” and glanced away.

Months later as I’m chatting with her mom at a weekend horse show, I heard her perspective about how she liked camp from her mom: she rode a lot, met a lot of people, took a lot art classes at camp,art excelled at archery and left Camp Runoia with a sense of confidence she didn’t know she had. Her mom asked her on a scale of 1-10 how would she rate it? She replied 9. What could have made it better? Attending camp earlier in her life. That conversation, with a Midwestern December blizzard carrying on outside the barn, left me warm and toasty in the cold and breezy spectators area next to the arena where the show was going on.

The second conversation that struck me was with one of our camp counselors and Runoia riding instructors from two summers ago. She also attended the horse show run by Mane Event. She rode a horse owned by our Director and was champion in her class this weekend! She was happy to see me and before she left the show to drive home in the snow storm – leaving herself three in a tentplenty of day light and time to get back safely – she sought me out to say goodbye.

She shared with me how being a camp counselor helped her be a solid Resident Assistant at her college. She says camp training provided her with “tools in her toolkit” she uses all the time at college. She thanked me for giving her the opportunity to hold one of the hardest and most rewarding jobs she’s ever had and how it has prepared her for life.

In the midst of this snow storm, in a place in the plains, far away from camp and my home, I glowed with warmth from these messages about Camp Runoia.  Whether you are reading this from your warm home on a cold winter day or from your office in a mild climate, you can be warmed by the thought of camp and all it has to offer people through its simple yet profound experience.

It’s a warm season albeit winter in Maine. Enjoy!

Alex and Leah

Camp as an Oasis

Posted on by Pam Cobb

We look back on the 107th summer at Runoia with a new lens of camp as an oasis for youth. On children and “screen time”, the National Institutes of Health reports: Most children spend about 3 hours a day watching TV. When you add in other screen time activities, it is closer to 5 – 7 hours a day. Too much screen time can:

  • Increase your child’s risk of becoming obese
  • Make it harder to get your child to go to bed and fall asleep at night
  • Increase the chance that your child will develop attention problems, anxiety, and depression

At Runoia, our focus is on creating profound experiences for girls building lifelong skills. While Runoia has always been about community living (learning to get along with others), active lifestyles (life sports like canoeing, riding and tennis) and exploring the world around you (through adventure challenge, wilderness trips and art), today’s emphasis includes having an independent experience with sincere adults other than your parents, building self esteem through trying new things in a supportive environment, being the “stand up” girl and thinking of others – not only yourself – especially in the case of bullying or other exclusive behavior.

Moreover, the relevance of what we do every day with building life skills at camp is in partnership with 21st Century Learning and the concept of preparing campers to be team players, problem solvers, seek solutions and independently manage their lives at camp. Who knew camps would be on the cutting edge of education (P21), be referenced in the importance of “no child left inside” and in Michael Thompson PhD’s book “Homesick and Happy” How time away from parents can help a child grow? Unstructured play time is a buzz word in education and youth development and guess what camp offers throughout our daily schedule? Yep! Safe, unstructured play time. Although Lucy Weiser and Jessie Pond saw the importance of providing a summer experience for girls outside of the sweltering heat of New York City, is it possible they inherently knew how important summer camp really would be?

Today camp is an oasis for children to assuage their fears of being away from home, get time off from “screen time”, have fun times, reflective times, inspiring times, hear the sound of a loon across the lake, smell the fragrance of pine trees and sweet ferns, and meet a friend who may end up being a lifelong friend she’ll share these memories with forever.  Camp – more relevant than ever!

Thanks to all of you who support girls going to camp – as parents, grandparents, donors and believers!

Pay it Forward – Overused Phrase? I don’t think so!

Posted on by Pam Cobb

I love November and it is tied to Thanksgiving and being thankful, being around loved ones and feeling warm and fed. Thankful being the key word.

When I saw a note that said “if you left your brand new board here, we have it, call us”, it reminded me when we returned a woman’s purse and how good that made US feel (needless to say the woman!). The fascinating part of that story is that we found the purse on a hiking trail in Carrabassett Valley. When we found the ID in the wallet, it was for a student from the Bahamas. Seriously – what do we do with that? Well, when back at the condo, we searched Facebook for the purse’s owner and I shared one friend with that young woman. What are the chances?  I texted my friend and viola! Purse returned. And, I digress.

November is the ultimate month for paying it forward (now a verb – the entire action of doing something for someone else after someone does something good for you).

We use the phrase liberally – giving to someone else when you don’t expect anything in return or passing along a good deed or surprising someone else with a good deed. Perhaps it’s a stretch from Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight, nearly a century ago. It was brought to current day society through Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacy’s sweet film based on a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde – written and directed by two women, btw. Haley Joel Osment who launches a good-will movement. I hear the phrase more frequently now that social consciousness is a school yard and coffee shop subject. Maybe the film helped provide momentum for the movement – good stuff!

Overall, we just want to do GOOD. When I think of the camp experience and all the focus we have on helping others, thinking of others, including others, working as a team, giving to others, I feel #camp is all about Pay it Forward. As a camp business, we want to create good feelings, provide great experiences and hope that all the people we connect with do the same for others. #MaineCamps are exponentially doing good with thousands of campers and staff every summer and those campers and adults are going into their home communities and doing GOOD there. 

So, greet November with a warm hug – go do something good for someone else with no expectation and see how great you feel. Pay it forward is easy and effective and far from overused.

Reflections in pink

Posted on by Alex

I had a woman power kind of weekend which generated great reflective food for the Runoia blog thinking about women and girls their connections and their need to be allies in life.  First my daughter won the penalty shootout trophy at our coed, rec, soccer program.  Great that her skills have progressed not so great that for the second year in a row she received a trophy with a figure of a boy on it.  It was empowering to see how outraged the girls were!  At 8 and 9 years old they noticed that this was not OK and suggested ways that I their coach could help to fix it for next year.  We went online and found other styles of trophy that would suit either gender and sent them along to the head of the program who apologized profusely as it had never even dawned on her.   I felt like we had turned a situation around and I modeled for the girls  how to listen to their voices, advocate and not be satisfied with gender disparity.

Sunday I joined hundreds of people mostly women to walk to raise funds for breast cancer support services.  What a ‘fine Maine day’ by the ocean feeling the strength and power of people making a difference.  Women were out in force with their coworkers, girlfriends, daughters, parents and family members to have fun while showing their support and raising money for a great cause.  How cool if we get a Runoia team together for next year and for other events to help our girls spread the Runoia love and invest together in the world around them.

How often are our girls empowered by other girls and women around them?  Do they have female allies who stand with them and help them be the best that they can be?  How are they supported in our communities?  Luckily at camp we work intentionally to create an amazing, safe place for girls to grow and challenge themselves in a caring, supportive environment I hope that will support them as they move through the rest of their world.  Parents check out this great webinar provided by hardy Girls Healthy Women http://www.hghw.org/node/328

This year we are committed to reinforcing the bonds our campers share and will do what we can to get our girls together to have fun!  We hope that our campers, alumnae, families and friends will join us.