Session Two is in Full Swing

Yesterday, the Preserve opened its gates for the second time this summer, welcoming its first session of two-week campers onto Base Camp. Old camp friends reunited, and familiar faces flooded Girlsville and Boysville as staff pulled carts brimming with trunks, pillows, blankets, and backpacks to cabins which will be our campers’ homes for the next thirteen days. The day was a busy mix of newness and nostalgia, of seeing old cabin-mates and greeting new ones.

Session 2, in contrast to our first session, has a higher percentage of returning campers, giving the session a greater sense of homecoming: exuberant hugs are common, as is the overjoyed question, “How was your year?” But new faces still imbue the session with a sense of something unique, an experience that has not yet been lived. Returners often turn to their new cabin-mates and eagerly explain ORT (“Organic recyclable trash!”) or the blessings we sing at meals. And with this willingness to spread GRP’s traditions, to welcome in new campers and to render camp customs comprehensible, our returners help the GRP family grow a little larger the moment our new campers arrive.

The openness of this community that these opening day rhythms exemplify is representative of the very soul of this camp: we are a close-knit community with a dizzying number of traditions, ranging from evenings as reverent as our Upper Council Fires to moments as silly as the daily appearance of camp superheroes Ortman and Scrappy. But this community is also a community always seeking and encouraging newness and growth by welcoming new campers, new staff, and new families to the GRP network.

We hope these two weeks are formative and joyful for every camper who came through our gates yesterday afternoon, but we are particularly excited to see all of our campers who are coming home for the first time. And there is a singular joy in seeing the immediacy with which those who have been here before welcome new faces with open arms, just as eager as we are to spread the wonder, adventure, and discovery that makes GRP extraordinary.

Story by Katherine Poore & Photos by Brandon S. Marshall