My Annual Life Changing Moment - Part 1

I didn't post last week because I was at camp and out of contact with the outside world.  It's not just any camp; it is Royal Family Kids Camp, which exclusively serves children who are or have been in the foster care system.  Their mission is to "create life changing moments" for kids who have been victims of abuse or neglect.  Of course, the reality is that it also creates life changing moments for the adults who volunteer.  This post is going to be a nuts and bolts kind of post because it will be too long if I also comment on the meaning of everything.  I will post later about what it all means and what keeps unpaid adults doing this year after year.

When you first attend training, you come to realize that this is not like other camps.  There are, in fact, more adults than the number of kids we will take.  That is because of a rule called "the two deep rule," requiring the presence of two adults any time there are kids around but also because it takes an awful lot of people to pull of the scale of what we do at camp.

Sunday - We arrive on Sunday and begin setting up.  Counselors deck out their cabins and prepare their camper gifts so that the kids will know they have been prepared for.  They make signs with the camper names, the meaning of their names, and scripture they can associate with their own name.   Ladies from the sponsoring church have made quilts for the kids, and those are ready for them when they get there (A boy one year told us that he loved his quilt because it felt like security and love).  Other staff members get the dining hall ready (more on food in another post), get the program area ready with a full theater set and sound system, get the pool prepared, get the hundreds of activity boxes ready.  We take about sixty-five adults, and it takes everyone from lunch time until bed time to get camp prepared.  We meet and pray.

Monday - In spite of getting "everything" ready on Sunday, there is more to do on Monday morning.  The nurse, a couple of staff members, and Grandma and Grandpa are taken to the place where the kids are registered and checked in.  The counselors finish their welcome signs.  From the minute the kids arrive at camp, we want them to know how much love and thought has gone into preparing for them.

The kids arrive on a bus or several buses, and every adult is gathered, waiting for them, hooting and hollering like crazy people.  Counselors hold up their signs so that their campers can find them.  Returning kids find the people they remember from the year before and give them safe side hugs.  Connections from a year earlier are re-established instantaneously.  Counselors take their kids to their cabins while staff members carry their stuff.  We have a quick introduce everybody meeting and have lunch.  Then, camp really starts because the girls head for the pool, and the boys head for activity time.  With the exception of the kids who are hydrophobic, if you ask ANY kid at camp what their favorite thing is, they will say the pool.  They swim EVERY day and twice on Tuesday.  Our lifeguard is a newly retired PE teacher and swim coach, and I have watched her teach many frightened children how to swim.  It is very cool to watch her help them overcome their fear and have a life skill in just a few days.  Those same kids come back the next year ready to jump in the pool.  Activities are widely varied - everything from spin art to serious woodworking (like building a chair with power tools), from fuse beads to fishing, from archery to sand art, from horses to bracelet making.  There are a few dozen more activities, and any kid can choose to do any one of them.  One of the parts of our camp culture is giving the kids choices, and the activities are intentionally set up for that.

Tuesday - Tuesday starts early.  We take the kids to the pool BEFORE breakfast for the annual tradition called "The Polar Bear Swim."  It is the only time everyone is at the pool together at the same time.  It is called Polar Bear because we pour bags of ice into the water.  I can tell you as a physics teacher that the change in water temperature wouldn't be measurable, but the kids believe that the water is cold.  They earn a certificate for completing this, even if they only put in one foot (remember, some kids haven't learned to swim yet).  You wouldn't think this piece of paper would be motivating, but there were kids this year who were telling the new campers that they would get a certificate for doing it, and they were very excited.  The remainder of the day is a "normal" camp day, meaning meals, VBS style teaching and songs, more pool time and activity time, and an hour rest after lunch.  We often also have a serious tea party for the girls on Tuesday, which they come to in dress up clothes, sit at tables with table cloths and candles, have great tea party food - it is seriously grown up.  This year, we had five princesses (Snow White, Aurora, Anna, Elsa, and Tiana) attend.  Don't fear - the boys had their thing too.  Reps came out from the Bow Hunters Association and gave the boys real archery lessons.  There is some kind of evening activity.  This year it was water games, which was great because Tuesday was a scorching hot day this year.

Wednesday - Wednesday starts normal (i.e. breakfast rather than the pool),  and the day is reasonably normal until the evening activity.  This is when we have our "Big Event."  About 30 more adults come down from the sponsoring church to help with this event.  It is always carnival like, but this year's theme called for a medieval style Royal Faire, with face painting and cotton candy.  From "jousting" to bocce to an inflatable gauntlet - from a trebuchet to mini-golf to a 24ft rock climbing wall - the games are specifically chosen to give the kids challenges to overcome rather than an opponent to beat.  Watching a kid make multiple attempts to climb a wall and finally make it to the bell is awe inspiring.

Thursday - Thursday is EVERYONE's Birthday.  When I first started doing camp, the birthday party happened only in the evening; last year, it began with breakfast.  I think we hit the best distribution today by starting it with lunch.  The kids each got a big cookie of their own to decorate after their pizza lunch.  We sang to them and had them stand for each month of the year.  They got their presents after dinner, and the evening activity was playing with their presents.  Boys were out playing catch with the counselors, using their brand new footballs.  Girls were stringing bead jewelry with their counselors.  We have campers who have never had birthday parties or gifts (one even said that his mom told him at 5 that he had become too old for birthdays), so a birthday for everyone is a critical part of every RFKC.   Because of this (and because it is the final night), Thursday night can be a little emotional and is the most difficult night to get them into bed.

After the kids go to bed on Thursday, a lot of the stuff that went up on Sunday has to start coming down.  The staff packs up the activities and woodworking, counselors take down SOME of the cabin decorations (I used to stick them in their luggage to find when they got home).  Some of the set is taken down, and some of the dining hall.  We don't want them to wake up to a bare campground, but there isn't time in the morning to pack up everything.

Friday - Friday morning brings the wrap up of all the Bible stories and drama.  We send them to the pool one more time while we pack our stuff.  Then, we help them pack their stuff.  We meet one last time to watch a camp video and have a little "graduation ceremony" for our kids who are aging out.  Every camper goes  home with a photo album that has at least twenty photos from the week.  This is when there are a lot of tears, from both campers and adults.

We take them back to the church they left from and do a little presentation for their foster families.  We watch the video again and get them all checked out.  There are usually quite a few tears associated with this time as well.  Then, we go home and have a welcome home dinner, watch the video one last time (we won't ever get to see it again, so this is not too many times even though it may seem that way).   We share stories and pin people who have completed their first, fifth, tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth year (and yes, there are people who have done that).

I called this post My Annual Life Changing Moment for a reason.  There is a reason that I have done this 8 years, and some have done it for 20 years.  It matters.  This post would be extremely long if I shared all of that, so I will save that for my next post.