2023 Health Information

Capital Camps Families, 

This letter shares our 2023 COVID policies for Capital Camps as of June 6th, 2023. 

Our goal, as always, is to provide a healthy and safe camp experience. Additionally, we want to run camp this summer with as little disruption due to COVID as possible. We also know that all policies and procedures may change as conditions evolve.  

Our professional staff, medical committee, and onsite medical team have been working together to craft a policy that is medically sound and works for our residential camp setting.  

Camp is a different environment than home and school. We are a close community of approximately 600 people at a time and campers live in close quarters in bunks. We have campers and staff with varied health needs and challenges. For this reason, we continue to strongly recommend the initial COVID vaccination series and one bivalent booster prior to camp.  

Once we are at camp, and because COVID is no longer as serious a threat as it once was, we want our campers and staff to be able to fully enjoy camp and for COVID to not be a part of our daily experience. We are asking all campers to rapid test within 24 hours prior to camp arrival so that we don’t have COVID positive campers coming to camp. Some campers and families may wish, in addition to this requirement, to start testing in advance of the 24 hours to identify COVID sooner. This year, we have eliminated the step of uploading your test results prior to arrival. Should your camper test positive, please notify Camp. After that, we will not be testing (except as noted below) or masking at camp. Note: All summer staff will participate in COVID testing during Staff Training in advance of camper arrival.  

For all sorts of illnesses, our general approach will be to continue to follow our established criteria for when campers and staff need to be admitted (i.e., stay overnight) into our health center (the MIRP). Generally, this would be when they have a fever, significant respiratory symptoms, or are experiencing diarrhea or vomiting. As we have always done in the past, if a camper is admitted into the MIRP and stays overnight, we inform the parents. When these symptoms resolve, the camper returns to the camp program. If apparent symptoms and clinical judgment dictate that a COVID test is warranted to choose a treatment course, medical staff will perform the test and proceed accordingly.  

This approach allows our medical staff to treat campers based on current and best medical practices. It also reduces campers’ anxiety about whether to be tested or whether someone they know has COVID. If you are healthy enough and able to participate in camp, then you can. If you are not well enough to participate, we will do what we have done in the past for campers who are ill.  

If your camper tests positive during their summer session, Camp will reach out to discuss the isolation plan. Worth noting, while the remainder of the cabin will be continually monitored for symptoms, tests will only be administered to apparent symptomatic campers based on clinical judgment.  

Returning to our prior practices, Camp will reach out only to camper families with a sick child to discuss their health plan. As they say, no news is good news. 

We are looking forward to a joyous summer at camp – filled with friends, laughter, learning and fun!  

,כל טוב (all the best) 

Havi Goldscher, CEO 

Lisa Handelman, Camp Director 

May Camp Newsletter

From Lisa, our Camp Director…

“All my bags are packed and I am ready to go”, the song written by John Denver, can be heard on the last night of camp as candles float in the lake. In May, this song takes on a new meaning as we pack up our bags to head to camp. Our Dining Staff have already begun arriving at camp. In 26 days, our Ropes Course and Lifeguard Staff will arrive to begin their training. And in just 34 days, we will have our full summer team together to kick off staff week. Every summer is special in its own way and Summer 2023 is positioned to be a summer full of celebrations.   

This year we are celebrating our 36th (double chai) Anniversary! Our tagline “Individual Growth, Collective Future” encapsulates the impact on each person who comes to camp and how our work together will impact the Jewish community of tomorrow. At our recent summer Leadership Team gathering, we discussed the many skills learned at camp including, independence, responsibility, collaboration, and increased confidence. Together we build strong communities where each individual’s uniqueness shapes the communal experience.

This summer we will also be celebrating Israel at 75.  A connection to Israel is strongly embedded in daily life at camp.   The cabins in Benjamin are named for Israeli cities, Reich cabins are named for Israeli mountains, and Kaufmann cabins are named for Israeli Kibbutzim.  Part of our Shabbat experience at Camp includes Rikkud, Israeli dancing. We sing the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, every morning at B’yachad (our daily gathering at the flagpoles).  Talented Israeli staff join us each summer.  And our LITs will be traveling to Israel! It’s an amazing experience for each individual going and an opportunity for our leaders-in-training to return with programming ideas that will positively impact all of camp.

We are very excited about all the new things planned for summer 2023. From the highest point up in Kaufmann Village all the way down to the lake, there are new structures and new elements.  We will be adding a new sport to our sports rotation and a new element hanging on our static tower on the Ropes Course. Our CITs are poised to create a new Saturday afternoon tradition and our Kaufmann campers will once again be traveling off-camp for an outdoor adventure.  As part of our 36th anniversary celebration, we have invited alumni song leaders to join us.  We have enhancements planned for our staff including additions to our staff lounge and increased mentoring support. 

The Capital Camps team and I have the greatest job ever.  Every summer we get to help our campers and staff grow as individuals.  We are in the business of Jewish identity building.  We focus on Derech Eretz, commonly translated as “the way of the work”.  Derech Eretz is the code of behavior that includes integrity, kindness, and compassion.    And we get to do this in fun and joyful ways and by creating meaningful challenges and shared experiences.  We’re packing our bags in anticipation of all Summer 2023 will offer.  We can’t wait to start celebrating!

Home Hospitality – Supporting our Staff

We need your help and involvement in making our Home Hospitality program a success. This program not only offers us the opportunity to demonstrate our Jewish values and shows our appreciation for our hardworking counselors, but also enables us to meet legal requirements connected with hiring international staff.  

The majority of these individuals come to camp on J-1 visas, which requires cross-cultural exchange elements.  Our summer staff Engagement Coordinator creates events throughout the summer to intentionally integrate our international and domestic staff so both groups can learn from one another. Home hospitality, an opportunity for our international staff to stay with a family before camp, during intersession, and on days-off during the summer is another important component of this program. The Department of State provides examples of appropriate exchange activities which can include: opportunities to learn about American culture, history, philanthropy, volunteerism, sports, recreation, etc. Conversations about all of these topics happen naturally when families invite international staff into their homes. 

Those of us who have participated in Home Hospitality for Capital Camps international staff can attest that this is a relatively easy mitzvah to perform. 

  • Our staff are generally looking for a welcoming place to rest on their time off. 
  • Most families offer Home Hospitality to two or four guests, but some can accommodate more. 
  • A pullout couch or air mattresses are fine and some welcome the opportunity to do laundry. 
  • These independent and self-reliant young adults appreciate a ride to the Metro so they can explore the museums in DC or being dropped off at a nearby shopping mall. 
  • Sharing a meal or two together is a nice addition and if staff is staying with you on a day-off during the work week, there is no expectation to alter your regular work routine. 

I fondly remember a group of Israeli staff who stayed with us, walking to and from the Metro from our house and surprised us by making us shakshuka in the morning before they left.    

Home Hospitality is also a powerful way to demonstrate kindness and live our Jewish values. Abraham and Sarah provide us with inspiration for hakhnasat orkehim/hospitality to guests.  Abraham didn’t wait. He rushed to greet visitors and made sure they were comfortable and satiated. Several of our holidays also stress the important of inviting others into our homes.  We begin the Passover Seder welcoming anyone who is hungry. During Sukkot some ceremonially welcome ushpizin (Aramaic for guests) into their sukkah by inviting Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and Da. Each of these biblical leaders were uprooted and strangers in new lands. And I know my own Shabbat table is enriched when we have guests join us for Friday night dinner.  

We encourage everyone who is able to get involved with Home Hospitality this summer. Being a welcoming and inclusive community is one of the core values of Capital Camps. Please join us by completing this form to let us know how you can be involved.  

Thanks in advance,

Lisa Handelman 

Camp Director

April Newsletter

From Lisa, our Camp Director…

I spent this year’s Passover holiday in Krakow, Poland. It was an emotional rollercoaster to participate in a vibrant, engaging Passover Seder in a country where 90% of Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.  The day before Seder, my husband and I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. The next day we sat among Israelis, Americans, Germans, and Poles to recite the familiar words from the Haggadah.  We had come to Poland to visit our youngest daughter Dalia, who was both a camper and staff member at Capital Camps, including helping to lead the LIT Israel trip last summer. She is spending the year working at the Krakow JCC. 

On one hand, our visit was filled with learning about unimaginable sorrows as we toured the historical Jewish areas, heard stories about the Jewish ghetto, and stood among the “Empty Chairs of Krakow” where each chair represents a thousand lives lost.  On the other hand, the trip filled us with a strong sense of Jewish identity and pride.  In addition to its mission to rebuild Jewish life in Krakow, the JCC is actively supporting those fleeing the war in Ukraine.  My Dad was born in Germany, was a refugee and then a soldier in the USA and now his youngest of six grandchildren is helping Ukrainian refugees.

Unexpectedly I found a connection between the Israeli Rabbi who led Seder, our guide for the Jewish history walking tour, and myself as Camp Director.  We all believe strongly in the power of youth to make this world a better place.  During the Seder, Rabbi Avi shared two stories that resonated with me.  First of all, he reframed the account of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Tarfon, who were sitting at a Seder in B’nai Brock. All night long, they told the story of the Exodus from Egypt until their students came and said to them: “Our teachers, dawn has broken, it is time to say the Morning Prayer!”  Rabbi Avi suggested that these rabbis, living under the Roman oppression of the second century, needed to see the passion of youth to stop telling stories from the past and move on to the future. 

Rabbi Avi also shared a new perspective on the message of the four sons or four children; the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who doesn’t know to ask.  Rabbi Avi asked the assembled group to rank the children from most to least important.  After a lively debate, he suggested that the child who doesn’t know how to ask is the most important.  This child is there to remind us not to remain quiet.  We need to teach our children to ask questions and to challenge what we say and do.  It was especially poignant to be discussing the importance of not being silent in a country that witnessed the horrors of the holocaust. It is important to teach our children to speak up and speak out against injustice.     

Our non-Jewish tour guide, Big Tom, shared several stories that highlighted the complexity of human nature: wicked individuals who choose to save one life and a Jewish child who escaped the Krakow ghetto but led a questionable moral life as an adult. He shared openly about the persecution of Polish political prisoners but was careful to remind everyone how much harder it was for the Jews. Yes, there were righteous gentiles like Oskar Schindler, whose factory was a few blocks away from where the tour ended, but there was also deep anti-Semitism that continued even after the war. Big Tom explained that there was a time where the full complexity of the stories could not be honestly told.  He shared that today children, his children, and others, are learning the more nuanced truth and this gives him hope for the future.   

Every summer at camp, we get to experience the joy of Jewish community through the eyes of our campers.  We provide support as they discover their voice, get pushed a little bit out of their comfort zone, and learn how to live respectfully with others. Jewish identity is built during the high-energy excitement of Friday night song sessions. And in more subdued moments, we challenge campers to think about Jewish values and their relationship to Israel. Dalia credits Camp with giving her a strong sense of Jewish pride along with the reliance, independence, and confidence to move to Poland for a year.  She is using the skills she learned at Camp to help build a Jewish future and to respond to the current refugee crisis.  I can’t wait to see how the next generation of campers will do their part for tikkun olam, as they too take what they learn at camp to help repair the world.

Middle School is the Ideal Time to Start Attending an Overnight Camp

Photo of middle school boys

One sign that we are moving past the years marred by the COVID pandemic is the number of current 2nd through 5th graders clamoring to enroll in overnight camping.  At Capital Camps, we have a record number of campers this age applying for spots and have growing waitlists for some programs. At the same time, we are hearing from our current 6th, 7th and 8th grade campers that some of their peers have never gone to camp, are reluctant to leave home, and perhaps feel like starting camp “at the right time” is another item on the long list of things that the pandemic deprived them of experiencing. 

Not only is it not too late for Middle School students to start attending an overnight camp, it is especially important for this group of young adolescents who need our guidance to find their way to an overnight camp.  Dr. Deborah Gilboa, Family Physician and Resilience Expert, talks frequently about the power of a Jewish overnight camp experience to help children grow and develop.  She has shared how camp makes it fun to learn independence and how living with cool counselors or “near-peer mentors” provides the ideal environment to develop resilience. As an educator and camp professional, I couldn’t agree more.

Current Middle School students were 3rd to 5th graders when the pandemic closed most camps.  This experience interfered with the opportunity to develop academic and social-emotional skills.  Camps, especially those that are attuned to meeting the developmental needs of children and adolescents, are ideal places to help this age group learn valuable life skills.  For example, Capital Camps is organized around a village structure that is designed to meet the developmental needs of each age group.  Counselors received training related to child development and each village has a mental health professional or experienced educator who works alongside village leadership to address the social-emotional needs of the group.   

Middle Schoolers need to put down their phones and spend time outdoors.  They need to swim in the pool, jump in the lake, engage in sports for fun, dance, sing, create art, and eat pizza cooked at the farm.  Middle School age campers are ready for more complex experiences that include problem-solving field games and activities to build trust, communication and teamwork as part of a low and high ropes course program. In addition, a Jewish overnight camp like Capital Camps provides the foundation for each camper to take ownership of their own Jewish journey.  This is especially critical during the years right before, during and after a camper’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah year.  Peers and counselors in the role of “near-peer mentors” play a central role in identity formation at this age. 

The Capital Camps team recently joined a local middle school during their lunch period.  Students already enrolled in Capital Camps came over to say hi and chat with our team bringing their friends with them.  Some of their friends were interested in exploring coming to Capital Camps, others mentioned others camps they will be attending.   A few had special interests that precluded going away to camp, including one girl who talked about her ice skating career.  We were thrilled to share in their excitement.  One young man pointed to his friend and commented, “He isn’t going to camp; he’s not ready to leave home”.  It is our job to find these kids and with a little help from parents, teachers and camp professionals, help them explore how camp could be the ideal place to develop independence and resilience while, of course, having a ton of fun.

December 2022

From Lisa, our Camp Director…

I am looking forward to Hanukkah 2022 with renewed passion. The main theme of Hanukkah is “pirsumei nisa”, publicizing the miracle. In the Hanukkah story, the miracle is that a little bit of oil lasted for eight days. We publicize this miracle individually in our homes with family and friends as we light the Chanukah candles and publically with the community by placing our Hanukkiah (Chanukah menorah) in a window. The connection between the individual and the community is likewise a central theme at camp. Capital Camps is a place where individuals are supported and celebrated as they discover their “best selves” and at the same time Camp is a place where we create strong communities, in our bunks, in our villages, and throughout camp. In addition, the intentional weaving of Jewish values and traditions throughout what we do at camp inspires our individual campers and staff to go out into the world as more confident, connected, and proud Jews.

Last week Havi, Adina, Ilana, and I attended Foundation for Jewish Camp’s (FJC) biannual conference in Atlanta. For the first time since the onset of the pandemic, hundreds of camp professionals, lay leaders, and advocates were able to gather in person for networking, professional development and to celebrate Jewish camp. This public gathering of Jewish professionals from across North America and Israel both provided opportunities for individual growth and connected us to a strong community of like-minded leaders. Capital Camps is proud to have received two grants from FJC. The Yashar grant provides funding to support increased accessibility for campers and staff with disabilities and aligns with our goal to continue to grow our Atzma’im (inclusion) program. The Yedid Nefesh grant aims to provide support to address the mental, emotional, social, and spiritual health (MESSH) of campers and staff in holistic ways. There were specific sessions at the conference for both of these initiatives. Ilana attended the Yashar session and Adina attended the Yedid Nefesh.

Our work with the Yashar and the Yedid Nefesh grants supports individual campers and helps strengthen our community. While our Atzma’im (inclusion) program makes it possible for campers with disabilities to attend camp, we have always recognized that this program benefits the entire community. Likewise meeting individual campers and staff MESSH needs creates a safe and healthy camp community. Furthermore, these programs align with our camp values such as kindness (chesed), compassion (rachmim), social responsibility (achrayut), and decency (derech eretz).

The word Hanukkah means dedication. As we celebrate and publicize the miracle of Hanukkah, let us also rededicate ourselves to our values. Let us be inspired by our “best selves” to be inclusive and supportive of others. As we light the Hanukkah candles in our homes with family and friends, know that we are connected to our camp friends and families who are likewise lighting candles in their homes. Wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah!

Adina’s Yedid Nefesh Experience

I am so grateful to have attended FJC’s Leaders Assembly this past week. I attended through the Yedid Nefesh Initative. Yedid Nefesh (beloved soul) is a grant that promotes MESSH at summer camps. I am part of a cohort of 99 other camp mental health professionals that meet to talk about better practices for camp and the challenges that our staff and campers face today. I attended sessions with experts in the fields. This included sessions from Keshet; Bamidbar: the first Jewish wilderness therapy; Transplaining: an organization focusing on trans youth in camping; and S’more Melanin focusing on racial justice and equity in the camp world. Throughout the conference, I kept going back to our idea of challenge by choice. Many of the professionals at the conference spoke about the “struggle muscle” and how we can build that in our campers and young staff. The consensus in the room was that challenging situations use the struggle muscle, therefore, building resilience. So many of the gaps that our campers have in this area can be fulfilled by camp. Two other themes throughout the sessions were meeting staff and campers where they are at and building a culture of kindness. I am so excited to continue to work on these ideas and bring them to Waynesboro in 2023. 

Ilana’s Yashar Initiative Experience

I attended Leaders Assembly through the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Yashar Initiative. The initiative focuses on increasing accessibility for campers and staff with disabilities at Jewish day and overnight camps across North America. The sessions I attended focused on understanding and auditing the many sensory experiences at camp, celebrating neurodiversity, best practices for training our staff with tools and strategies to support the various needs of those in our community, and much more. In addition, I toured Camp Twin Lakes, a camp site that hosts transformative week-long camps for children with serious illnesses, disabilities, and other life challenges. We learned about physical and experiential accessibility and left with tangible ideas of ways to increase accessibility at our camps. 

As a new year-round team member, I appreciated the opportunity to network with and learn from countless professionals from camps all over North America. In addition to the Yashar Initiative focused sessions, I attended sessions on how we can effectively appreciate our summer staff, the value of taking risks and trying new things, and strategies for staff recruitment. 

I am looking forward to bringing the knowledge I gained from Leaders Assembly to our summer Leadership Team and staff, so that we may continue to live out our values of inclusion and being a camp for all, and so we can continue to create the best possible experiences for every member of our camp community. 

November 2022

From Lisa, our Camp Director…

November is the month when my thoughts often turn to the idea of gratitude. Gratitude for warm fall days with leaves changing color but also because routines seem more settled.  We are past the obligations of the High Holidays, most of our campers have mastered their school schedules, many of our 2022 CITs have submitted their first bunch of college applications and our staff have successfully moved into college dorms or are engaged in this year’s academic or work pursuits.  The value of gratitude or hakarat hatov in Hebrew is something we often focus on at camp.  At camp, it is often easy to find reasons to be grateful.  We are thankful for our camp friends and counselors who create fun and magical camp memories.  We are grateful for the opportunity for long hours of play, for being able to splash in the pool and lake, and for singing and dancing on Shabbat.  As summer slips into the past and next summer still feels far away, it is important to hold onto the memories and the feelings of gratitude that come with them.        

November is also about family as many of us start thinking about our  Thanksgiving gatherings later this month.  Our family has a Thanksgiving tradition where we go around the table and each shares thoughts of gratitude.  Reflecting on the connection between gratitude at camp and expressing thankfulness at Thanksgiving, remind me of the importance of our camp and family partnership. The values we focus on at camp are introduced and reinforced at home. Parents make an intentional choice to send their child to the immersive Jewish experience which is Capital Camps.  Every camper has their parent’s encouragement to leave home for a few weeks in the summer, to start a new, yet unknown adventure. 

The most famous Jewish story of adventuring into the unknown is found in last week’s Parsha or Torah reading, Lech Lacha.  In this Parsha, God says to Abraham, “Go from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house to a land I will show you.”  We often think of this as if Abraham is leaving everything about his family in the past.  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Z”L suggested another interpretation.  A close look at the chronology of events shows that Abraham’s father traveled with Abraham away from Abraham’s birthplace.  His family accompanied Abraham for at least half of the journey.  As Rabbi Sacks writes a deeper truth is “hidden in the guise of a simple genealogy at the end of the previous parsha – that Abraham was actually completing a journey his father began.”

Likewise, we often think that when campers jump out of their parent’s car on the first day of camp they are leaving their parents and family behind.  In reality, the lesson learned at home comes with our campers in their luggage.  And we are grateful for this.  We are grateful for a strong partnership with our camp parents.  We appreciate camp parents who reached out to provide feedback about their child’s summer experience, we are thankful to camp parents who are on the Board and who serve on our many committees including our Camp Committee and we are thrilled to have a new bunch of Camp Parent Ambassadors.  Whether a parent was a camp kid themselves or chose to have their child start a family tradition of attending camp, we know that each child is completing a journey started and encouraged by a parent.

At this year’s Thanksgiving meal, I plan to share how grateful I am to be part of the Capital Camp’s team.  I am thankful to my colleagues, with a special shout out to our newest member, Ilana Kornblatt, who is working tirelessly in the planning season to prepare for summer 2023.  And I am grateful to be able to partner with parents to provide campers and staff with a summer full of personal growth and Jewish community building.

May 2022

From Lisa, the Camp Director:

Camp is buzzing with excitement!  Hundreds of the best Jewish camp counselors from more than 60 camps across North America gathered this week at Capital Camps for the Cornerstone Seminar.  It was great to be at camp along with Larry Ginsburg, our senior Jewish educator and our own Cornerstone fellows, Ari Geller, Gabby Gordon, Hannah Oshinsky and Bella Rosner and our Senior Cornerstone fellow and Jewish Life assistant, Emma Platt.  Since Sunday, we have been exchanging ideas, attending workshops, and working on ideas to both strengthen our camp traditions and create new and innovative programming.

As we prepare for summer, I am reminded of the classic poem by Joseph Parry that encourages us to both make new friends but keep the old.  We are planning for a more historically typical summer filled with our favorite camp traditions.  We are looking forward to gathering as one community for meals as we bring back the salad and breakfast bar options.  In addition to having Israeli counselors join us again this summer, we are thrilled to welcome back Israeli campers who will be joining our Reich, Kaufmann and Macks Villages and Israeli campers who come for two weeks as part of a partnership with the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces.  Our Macks campers will once again be going on their ACE adventure trip.  And most significantly, we are planning to gather with all our friends as a full community to celebrate Shabbat.  We are looking forward to putting on our Shabbat whites and having T’filah (services) and dinner together followed by singing and dancing as one community.  Shabbat day will also be a communal time with friends and siblings from different villages being able to hang out together. These traditions are like old friends, they are golden and very dear to our hearts.

We are also very excited about what’s new this summer.  We have an amazing Israel trip planned for our LITs and have added staff housing in the LIT village. We have doubled our Rookie program from two times during the summer to four times (two each session) and created an innovative partnership between our CIT and Rookie programs.  Our new Community Care Coordinator, Adina Golob, has been hard at work meeting campers, parents and staff.  Of course we have some amazing new staff members joining our team and will be introducing a new coaching and mentoring program to support them.  We will be joining camps across the country to celebrate a new Camp Kindness Day.  In addition, we are exploring additional ways to infuse more Hebrew language, add more music and grow our Shabbat experiences at camp.

It felt great to start the camp season early at the Cornerstone Seminar. We are looking forward to an amazing summer full of traditions, new experiences, fun,  and friendships.

April 2022

What do our camp philosophy of “challenge by choice” and the Passover Seder have in common?  As the Camp Team and summer leadership team shared their Passover family traditions, we realized there are a lot of parallels between what was happening in our homes and what we do at camp.  Challenge by choice is the idea that we all participate, we are all part of a communal experience, yet exactly how we participate can differ depending on our needs and desires.  Passover is reported to be the most celebrated Jewish holiday.  So many of us choose to participate and at the same time we often add our own personal spin that makes our Seder different from all others.   

This year, one family had a multi-Haggadah Seder using nine different Haggadot, ranging from the traditional Art Scroll to the unofficial Hogwart’s Haggadah.  Some families read the Haggadah cover to cover, while others dressed in costume and acted out the Exodus story.  There were a lot of different songs about frogs here, frogs there, frogs hopping everywhere and a health debate about whether the youngest child can require siblings to help out with the four questions. One family always sings “who knows one in Yiddish” while one always sings Chad Gadya during dessert.  One family uses boiled potatoes to dip in the salt water instead of parsley and we all seemed to have a different family recipe for charoset.  Collectively, we all celebrated the joyfulness of the holiday in our own unique ways.  
At camp, we honor our individual differences while at the same time coming together to build communities based on Gemilut Hasadim, acts of loving kindness. This is also the time of year where we ask families to complete all their camper forms.  The Health History is a searchable form that allows us to prepare for campers’ physical and social emotional needs.  This form needs to be updated every year and includes new questions.  Completing all the medical forms and utilizing our medication disruption company, Pack My Rx, helps keep our community safe.  Together these forms help us get to know each camper as a unique individual.    
Some of the forms help us build our bunk communities.  We start forming both our first and second session bunks in early May so, if your camper has a bunkmate request, completing the Bunk Request form is the best way to let us know.  The About Me and About My Camper forms are letters to your child’s counselor and can include information about friendships and favorite activities.  Reviewing and signing the Camper Code of Conduct with your camper helps prepare them for our community expectations.  And an updated photo lets us see how much campers have grown and helps our counselors and our camper care team get to know those they will be working with this summer.  A checklist of all the forms can be found on your CampInTouch Dashboard. 
At the Passover Seder, we are obligated to remember being freed from slavery in Egypt.  Memory is at the core of many Jewish experiences.  One family’s special Passover tradition is to add a cooked piece of carrot inside some matzah balls and if you get it, you share a Passover memory.  We are looking forward to a summer full of amazing camp memories.  We are looking forward to the individual and communal ways we will participate and challenge each other. 

From our camp family to your family, wishing you all a Chag Pesach Semeach.

March 2022

From Lisa, our Camp Director…

The term “best practice” has been used to describe “what works”, what methods and procedures result in the desired outcome.  At camp we are in the business of building Jewish Identity.  Camp is all about children having fun.  If fun is not present, none of the serious Jewish identity-building, personal growth and community connection activities can take place and be absorbed.  Our year-round team is committed to ongoing professional development and learning.  In addition, engaging in numerous virtual learning opportunities, members of our camp team recently attended the American Camp Association’s Tri-State Conference.  Summer 2022 will be a new and exciting time for our Capital Camps community.  We plan to build on meaningful traditions from past summers while incorporating current best practices.

There were several sessions at the Tri-State conference about the need to reinforce the basics; learning to connect with peers and small groups as we rebuild community.  From the conference, we brought home a collection of fun new game ideas.  These games will be used in the dining hall to spark conversations, to help campers in different bunks connect with each other, and will be used to encourage meaningful conversation during cabin time activities. Our most recent camp committee meeting was focused on ways to strengthen community building.  We plan to intentionally work with our summer leadership team to incorporate the ideas brought forward and to make building cabin, grade level and the full camp community a reenergized priority this summer.     

It was noted throughout the conference that language and boundaries have changed. Children and young adults are describing their own mental health challenges in way that feel more dire and stressful.  Conversations about gender and identify are more prevalent.  There is a need for emotional, physical, and behavioral boundaries to be more clearly communicated and reinforced.  These sessions reinforced how essential it was that we added a Community Care Coordinator, Adina Golob, to our year-round team.  We have updated our Health History form and encourage parents to pay attention to the new mental health related questions on this form.  As we design our staff training, we will be adding new sessions devoted to meeting the MESSH (Mental, Emotional, Social, Spiritual Health) needs of both campers and staff.  

At Tri-State, there were several sessions devoted to staff recruitment and supporting the needs of staff.  We have made staff professional development a priority this summer.  All of our summer supervisors will be checking in with their staff weekly using a more formalized system that redefines the role of supervisor as a coach or mentor and incorporates checking in about self-care and areas of professional growth.  The camp team will also be eliciting feedback from staff in a more formal way so we can be more timely in responding to staff’s needs and provide additional support as needed.  Camp is brought to life by our summer staff; they are exemplary role models who care and nurture our campers.  Supporting our staff will ensure that they will be able to provide an amazing, fun summer for their campers.   

Lifelong learning is a pillar of our Jewish values. When Moses assembled the Jewish people as they prepared to leave Egypt, he talked about the duty of parents to educate their children. We are thankful that this summer we can partner with parents as we share in the awesome responsibility to educate children and young adults. Learning at camp is done as we inspire our campers and staff to grow as individuals through challenges and shared experiences. We are committed to lifelong learning, incorporating best practices, and providing a safe, fun, and meaningful summer. We can’t wait for summer 2022!