The Joy of Summer Camp

By Meg Hurdman, Family Minister

If your child is between third and eighth grade in school, your child has a wonderful opportunity to be a camper. At sleep-away camps, children can try new activities and make new friends. They will develop confidence, independence, and a sense of responsibility for each other and the natural environment. Living together in a community, children and teens are challenged in ways that bring personal growth and development.

Organized residential summer camping is uniquely American and began just prior to the Industrial Revolution. Cities were crowded and dirty, and out of that environment evolved a desire to get back to nature. There was the belief among educators, parents, and religious leaders that an experience in the wilderness was critical to the physical, moral, and spiritual health of the younger generation. As a result, many summer camps are owned and operated by religious organizations, including multiple Christian denominations.

Because the original name has been shortened to an acronym, people today may not realize summer camping gained a boost from the YMCA & YWCA movement, short for Young Men’s (or Women’s) Christian Association. The local Y’s still own and operate many beautiful properties around the country, including a co-ed camp in Winthrop, Maine: Maine Y Camp. I was a camper and counselor at Camp Eberhart, a Y camp on Corey Lake in Three Rivers, Michigan. My 92-year-old father and I revisited it last spring and found everything to be as pretty and wonderful as it always was.

Cabins at Camp Bishopswood

Maine is home to over 145 residential camps, which can be searched here: Maine Summer Camps, including Bishopswood, which has been owned and operated as an arm of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine since the early 1960s. Located on the shores of Lake Megunticook near Camden, Bishopswood is a co-ed residential camp offering sessions from 1 to 8 weeks.

In our midst are many special camps, such as Hoop Camp, located on Sebago Lake in Casco, which focuses on teaching the fundamentals of basketball while helping campers develop teamwork and communication. Our wonderful nursery sitters, Grace and Mary Belanger, are summer counselors at Hoop Camp. Also on Sebago is Camp Sunshine, which offers sessions for critically ill children, their siblings, and parents at no charge to the families. New England Music Camp in Sidney is dedicated to the cultivation and refinement of musical skills in young people. There is also a unique and special place in Otisfield called Seeds of Peace, which offers a residential experience for Jewish and Palestinian teens from the Holy Land, as well as other teens from conflict zones around the world. They focus on personal transformation and then wider societal change.

For interested parents of younger children, you can start with a day camp offered in most of our local towns through Community Programs. For middle and high school teens, I also recommend the Young Life Camps.