The Art of Caring: Discovering the Nuances

The other night we had our weekly staff meeting. The whole crew comes together after evening program to discuss the upcoming week and to go over various odds, ends and typical camp trends. Often times the thing doesn’t even start until after 10pm, and it usually runs well into the night. Snacks are served, raffles are done, and prizes are won. Walking into the beginning of one of these meetings, you would think it was a social event; people laughing, mingling and clowning around. Once we get started though, it quickly becomes clear that these meetings are anything but. Serious matters are discussed and important insight is shared. After the larger assembly concludes, several smaller breakout discussions occur to further tackle some of the highlights. During this time Sari and I meet with the CITs (Counselors in Training) to discuss their camp experience. Regrettably, I used to go into these CIT meetings anticipating unintentionally selfish accounts of the summer’s trials and tribulations. I am, however, regularly impressed by this particular group of girls. We sat for over an hour and just talked. Not about staff issues, not about time off concerns, not about the weather. We talked about the campers. Just the campers and nothing but the campers. This meeting, which was completely driven by this group of counselors I will add, was so thoughtful, and so intentional and so unbelievably selfless.

I try to think back to where my brain was at sixteen years old, and I wish I could say that it was provoking the kind of critical thought and meticulous reasoning that I am seeing from within these girls. They are beautifully passionate about their work here, and remarkably cautious in their approach- almost like artists, lightly sketching in pencil before going over their work with the finality of paint. They seem to know the power and influence of their words, and therefore want to string them together with perfection.

At Chippewa we pride ourselves on a clear mission: No child slips through the cracks. Every camper must have an individual experience that reaps tangible results. Here’s the thing, though: without this caliber of care, there is no way to reach those heights. And those heights are high. Each summer we bestow this tall order upon our staff with the expectation that they produce these outcomes, and they do. The burning passion that I see in this group of CITs cannot be fabricated, it can only be cultivated, and even then, that urge to nurture has to come from the most inaccessible of depths. It has to be “their idea.” They don’t know this yet, but the payoff for these efforts will be a certain kind of love and respect that could only be gifted by a child who feels cherished and cared for with genuine intent.

Sixteen. What was I doing? Not viewing my campers’ experience as a blank canvas. I was not sitting with my camp director pondering youth development. I was certainly not striving to discover and repair the fractured nuances of a child’s camp experience. These counselors are truly sensational and I can’t wait to see the results of their efforts.

All best
Cliff