Mooredale Day Camp

Stories

• 'We are very thrilled' ~ A testimonial

  An end of summer testimonial from a camp mom:

  Hi Eric – We are the parents of (_) who was a junior camper this summer for 6 weeks. She LOVED the program and came home each day with a new story about a friend she had made or a game that was played. She also made big strides in improving her swimming and comfort with learning to swim. We are very thrilled with her experience this summer.

• 'The rave reviews we have heard are true' ~ A testimonial

  An mid-summer testimonial from a camp mom:

  Thank you Eric!!

  My kids are loving the camps and the food!! All of the rave reviews we have heard are true and more! We are so happy with the programming and the camp! 

• 'Mooredale was by far his favourite' ~ A testimonial

  An end of summer testimonial from a camper mom:

  I just wanted to send a quick note to say thanks (so) much for a terrific few weeks. (My son) was enrolled in several different camps this summer and Mooredale was by far his favourite. He loved the food. He loved the Karate and all the different activities. Your staff was amazing. I really appreciate it and all the work you do.

• The Courage Stone

  This summer, we had a young girl, about age 5, join us for camp the first time.  Right from the first day, the morning drop-off was a struggle for her.  The anxiety of separating from her father was too much to bear, and she could hardly be consoled when he parted and left her in our care.  After some time she would settle down and would go on to enjoy the rest of the day, but the morning parting was stressful for her, her father, and for us.

  After a couple of days, the father came up with an idea.  He found a nice shiny stone and gave it to his daughter and told her it was a Courage Stone. 

  "When you're feeling sad and upset, just take this courage stone out of your backpack and hold on tight.  It will give you courage and will help you when I say goodbye in the morning," he told her.  From that day on, every morning, she clutched her stone as dad said goodbye, tears still in her eyes, but absolutely believing that she had the courage to stay at camp on her own.

  (On it's own, this alone was a cool story.  But then this happened:)

  A few days into the session, our camper was waiting for the morning activities to begin.  Dad was safely away, and she was still holding her courage stone, when she noticed another camper was upset on the other side of the pickup area.  The camper was crying and a camp staff was unsuccessful in their attempts to calm him down.  Our little hero cautiously walked up to the older camper whom she didn't know, and holding out her hand, offered her courage stone to the upset camper. 

  "Here" she said.  "This will help you to be brave."

  It was one of the most generous displays of selflessness we had ever seen!

• International Flavour

  We'd like to introduce you to Camper Y and his sister, Volunteer Z.  This summer we had the pleasure of them joining our program for two weeks.  Camper Y was visiting from China, and his father hoped for him to have a Canadian experience and to help him develop his English.  Since Camper Y's English was very limited, his sister -who has lived full time in Canada for a little while - agreed to volunteer for two weeks to act as his translator.

  We weren't quite sure how this would go.  Would he fit in?  Could we communicate effectively with him?  How would we run programs and give instructions?

  Well, we shouldn't have worried.  Camper Y did exactly what most kids do when they are in a camp setting - he made it work.  With help from his sister, he fit right in and took part in the programs.  They even found some sleeping bags and overnight gear and joined the Senior campers on their three day camping trip to Kelso Provincial Park. 

  At the end of his session, I received an email from him mom, who was still in China, and had heard reports back on his camp experience.  "He loves the camp" she said.  'Can you send pictures of him taking part in activities so we can show his friends and family back home what he is doing?"  Of course we wanted to celebrate with Camper Y his success, so I spent time that afternoon following his group around capturing them in action.

  We had several campers from different countries join us this summer, and even a staff member from Cuba!  The international flavour that these guests brought to camp went a long way to making this summer so successful.  We look forward to seeing Camper Y again next summer, and maybe he'll even bring a friend!

• Mooredale Mealtime Madness and the Daily Water Dump

  So this is me, the Camp Director. 

  And no, I'm not promoting recycling.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the 3 R's, but this bin is not full of paper and plastic.  It's full of water.

  Yep, water.

  And I'm about to dump it on two of the summer staff.  Which is what I do every day after lunch.

  "You drop water on your staff out a second story window every day?  You must be the meanest boss ever!"  I could understand if you thought that.

  But you'd be wrong, because the daily water dump is one of the most popular aspects of our camp day.  Every day after lunch, we have a time that we call "Mooredale Mealtime Madness".  Or MMM for short.  ((Don't confuse it with Mooredale Morning Madness, also known as MMM - thats a story for another day)) 

  MMM is this - each session we choose 10 counsellors to compete every day in a series of events.  And each day, one or two counsellors end up losing that event.  And when you lose....we'll, that's where the water comes in.  The staff members make their way to the walkway under the window and... well, lets just say we help them cool off!

  See, I'm not a mean boss!  I'm actually helping them out!   :-)

• The Evolution of a Camera-Shy Camper

  This is Camper X (obviously not his real name!) and we had the pleasure of his company for six weeks this summer.  Camper X was not new to Mooredale Day Camp.  In fact he had been attending our summer program for some time. 

  Since he began taking part in our camp program, Camper X has always been camera shy.  Perhaps 'shy' is too light a term - he pretty much refused to be in any photo at all, even the group photo that goes home with every camper at the end of each session.  Nothing we did could convince him to take part in any sort of picture.  We didn't push him when he said no, but we kept asking because we wanted to show his parents that he was taking part and enjoying the camp program.

  Then towards the end of his final two weeks with us, things began to change.  One day the section director that Camper X was in came rushing into the camp office.  "I just got some great pictures of the campers taking part in a cooking class" she said.  "And guess what!  Camper X actually posed and smiled for a photo!  We should sent it to his mom!"  I use to many exclamation points, but she was really that excited.  It really was a big deal for us.  So we emailed the picture to mom and she was pleased.

  A couple of days later, during our all camp swim, I was taking some photos of the activity, and Camper X came up to me to ask if I would take his picture.  I almost dropped by camera in the water!  I said sure and asked what he wanted to do.  "Take a picture of me jumping in the water!" he begged, so that's what we did for the next few minutes.  In and out of the pool he went to get some photos of him jumping in the water.

  While we ended up with a few good photos, I was more pleased with how we had built enough of a relationship with Camper X to allow himself to trust us to take care of him.  When he didn't want his picture taken, we respected that.  When he was ready, we celebrated with him.