Resource Library

One amenity you’ll find on just about every camp, regardless of its overall focus or theme, is a ball field. Beyond baseball and softball, that open space lends itself to a dozen or more other activities. With just a little bit of planning and forethought, it can deliver even more bang for your capital buck. This month, we’re going to look at a couple of the most basic elements to make the most of the space.

"The resilient child is one who works well, plays well, loves well, and expects well."

—Norman Garmezy

When we talk about youth, we too often use negative terms: what we would like them to stop doing. We want them to stop using drugs, stop drinking, stop dropping out of school, stop having sex, stop getting pregnant, stop being violent, and stop committing other delinquent acts. In short, we would like them to stop having problems - and stop being problems.

My mother never told me there’d be days like these. Challenging? Yes. Difficult? For sure. But nearly impossible? Not so much.

The last full day of camp is always one filled with emotion. But on this day — a day made especially gloomy by unrelenting rain and wind — the emotions went beyond those typically attached to packing up and saying goodbye. They also accompanied the rare, and unlikely, suspension of five outstanding teen leaders just hours shy of our closing ceremonies — and their graduation.

The quiet, final weeks of August find camp directors exhaling and peering out over empty fields — luckier ones are on a beach somewhere preparing meticulously crafted reenrollment letters. Agonizing over price increases to the tenths of a percent, directors know that other than a handful of summer sign-ups, many camps actually have no enrollment for the coming year. That dilemma may be resolved within days for some, but others, especially those serving teens and many nonprofit camps, must start from scratch every fall.