Summer 2018
We're already up to Summer '18! Time flies when you're looking at coffee mugs.
A red letter year with a red ceramic mug, because for the first time since we switched to an open enrollment model at the tail end of the last century, 4-H Camp was at 100% capacity! All sold-out, all 7 sessions, not an empty bunk all summer long.
Cabins #7 and #9 received renovations, and we constructed (and cleverly named) our Canoe-nity Garden! It was our first Whodunnit Week.
Oh, and it's also forever known as the summer of the drone crash.
SUMMER 2019
Well, a brand-new swim dock system for the first time in 70 years leads the list of facility upgrade in Summer '19. While we were at it, we got some new fans and some new boats and some new benches and some new sheds cause it was fun to say "new for nineteen."
We also introduced some new themes which would become mainstays, like Epic Tales of Mythic Legends and CampPandemonium.
Also, we were once again 100% sold-out all summer long. The New Jersey 4-H Camp was in a great rhythm, and surely nothing would ever happen to disrupt it, throw us off our game, and require us to reinvent everything.
SUMMER 2020
Hold on. What summer is it now? Oh, all right. Here we go.
So yeah. You probably have a vague recollection of this. As it slowly became clear that there would be NO overnight camps operating in the state of New Jersey in the summer of 2020, the 4-H Camp Staff refused to except the intolerable fact of a summer without camp.
So they took their beloved tech-free camp...and put it on the computer.
As I mentioned in Part I of this little retrospective, the biggest takeaway is just how many wonderful people have given so much to make 4-H Camp what it is, and that's never clearer then when we look at Summer 2020: HAFHAH. (Home Away From Home At Home, if you've forgot.)
Staff who were going to work that summer volunteered, staff who've been gone for a bit came back, campers said yes to the nonsense, and parents and Camp Families supported us in making it happen.
It remains strange that the only summer that no campers were actually AT Camp remains one of the most memorable/successful of them all.
If you need a reminder of just how strange and campy HAFHAH was, I recommend checking out the Lightning Edition of our Talent Show.
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Once again...TO BE CONTINUED!
Well. After THAT curveball, I think we deserve another break. We'll be back with our final three coffee mugs in the next edition!
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