Category: Equity and Inclusion

Counting down the days and checking the lists

Posted on by Alex

There are only 60 days until the first session of camp opens. It will be Camp Runoia’s 115th season on Great Pond and we are preparing for it to be the best yet. After a year of challenges, isolation and unpredictable schedules we are eagerly anticipating the routine and familiarity of camp life. The days until camp are getting shorter and the to do list are getting longer!

For some of us 60 days seems like an eternity. There is school to finish up and end of the year events to attend. As we get ready to open camp we know that 60 days will fly by as there is much to be done to get the campus and program ready to roll for the summer. 

This week the focus in the office has been on putting the finishing touches to our 9 days of staff training. The time before the campers arrive is packed with getting our seasonal staff up to speed on all things Runoia and also making sure that everything is perfectly ready to start the summer. There are certification trainings, bonding exercises, cleaning and opening of cabins and activity areas along with a whole lot of fun while building our team and getting to know each other. This year we are really working harder to include more education and awareness about diversity, equity and inclusion and have been tweaking our sessions to reflect our commitment to doing a better job. Staff will come together from many different places looking forward to the opportunity to work with Runoia campers and enjoy all that the Maine outdoors has to offer.

We have also been recruiting the last few staff to join the team, filling the final camper spaces and getting the spring new camper penpal mailing ready to go. The work in the camp office is always diverse. It’s been frequently interspersed with webinars and workshops updating us on covid protocols and best practices for the summer. The bonus of us all working remotely is that it is easy to share information and we can hop onto presentations anywhere in the country. The days are already getting exciting as we get to read letters to the directors and start to ‘meet’ the 2021 Runoia girls.

Our inboxes are filling up with questions from new families mostly about packing as campers excitedly start preparing what they will need. There are uniforms being ordered and crazy creek chairs purchased. In many homes camp is now a daily topic of conversation. 

On the campus grounds side of the work, the daffodils are blooming and it’s finally time to get into camp and start the clean up. The winter usually brings downed branches and a lot of acorns so the crew will be in to do a good pick up. It won’t be long before the grass gets its first cut, the water gets turned on and the docks all go in. It will start looking more like the camp our girls are used to once the shutters come down and the cabins are opened up. A few spiders will need to be rehomed into the woods and we will be ready to get year 115 rolling.

We want the next 60 days to be filled with excitement, with preparation and planning. For them to give us enough time to get everything done but also to fly by so that all of our summer family will be ‘home’ soon.

The Work

Posted on by Pam Cobb

We started our work this summer with the pressure of COVID and a full-on effort to provide camp with physical and emotional safety for campers and staff being paramount.  The rest of the world was going on outside our bubble including the tragic killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubery, Dion Johnson, Travon Martin, and too many others. We were all consumed in our mission about Camp Runoia Harmonyville 2020 and not thinking about the message silence was creating for our organization.

On June 2, I received a wake up email from three of our 15 year old campers. “We are disappointed you have not made a stance on Black Lives Matter. What is your stance?” We were so focused on how we could operate camp during a global pandemic that we had overlooked the importance of sharing our belief that Black Lives Matter and moreover, being a strong female organization where girls specifically need to be lifted up, that Black Women Matter. Thanks to Emily, Keira and Margo for helping us to get to work.

And we went to work. I didn’t even know the expression, The Work, I’d known Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work but not The Work. Hello! I like it. For 30 years we felt we started the work. We had reached families of color to include them to attend camp, we reviewed our hiring practices to try to find more people of color for summer camp jobs in with college students majoring in education, health care and social work. We provided staff training about celebrating differences and inclusivity. I’d been on conference panels about diversity in camp in our very white northeastern privileged resident camps. We were doing work other camps hadn’t even considered. In the late 1990s we added our Community Statement in our Staff Manual – a statement that needs revising and updating:

Camp Runoia has fostered a culture of celebrating diversity and encouraging campers and staff from around the world with a spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds as well as different religious backgrounds.  Each person in the community is treated with respect and acceptance regarding their race, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, creed, socio-economic standing, gender, disability, and culture.

Our work so far is just the tip of the iceberg. We need to do more. This summer we did a few things immediately to support Black Lives Matter thanks to the prompts of our 15 year old campers. We researched and made a plan. We celebrated Juneteenth with staff (camp was not yet open on June 19), we implemented a three part anti-racism training for staff during our upcoming staff training with anti-racism trainer, Love Foy.  We added books to our library on diversity and inclusion as well as novels with black protagonists. We created a Black Women Matter advisory board to the Runoia administrators with four alumnae who are people of color, plus a representative from the 15 year old group and one Runoia administrator. We removed the old bell post at camp that clearly screamed cultural appropriation that we had never seen before. It had just always been there and was carved by two women back in the 1930s. It seemed innocent although I never liked that there was a man at the top of the bell post at our girls camp. Blinders are hazardous. We took it down to go in our future museum and our 16 year old CITs with no prompting proposed they make a new bell post. they did it! Incredible!

When I read the newsletter, Ideas in Progress, by Crystal Williams, Vice President and Associate Provost for Community and Inclusion at Boston University, I realize we have so much more work to do. Our book club just met to discuss How to be An Antiracist. I purchased it from a black owned bookstore. If you’ve not read the book and want to visit with Brene Brown and Ibram X Kendi, here’s the podcast. Supporting black owned businesses is another way we are doing the work. I need to pace myself because I feel we are so far behind it is overwhelming. After just attending a conference on DEI, in virtual breakout rooms I heard from others that they feel overwhelmed. We can take small steps toward affecting change and success. Here’s one way we can start. Share with your family about 10 phrases that are racists that you may be surprised to learn and practice removing them from your vocabulary. Be kind. Be patient. It takes time to unlearn.

In summary we have a lot to do. Alex and I have been connecting about how to honor the people who lived and walked on the land our camp is on before we arrived. Stay in touch and we’ll have more to share!

Love, Aionur