Did you know that between 2001 and 2004, the American Camp Association® (ACA) conducted national research with over 5,000 families from eighty ACA-accredited camps to see if we could “prove” what we in the camp field all know to be true: Camp gives kids a world of good? Indeed, parents responded that their children grew significantly in all these areas of human development: self-esteem, independence, leadership, friendship skills, social comfort, peer relationships, adventure and exploration, values, and decision making. The value of a camp experience, we thus were able to declare, was no longer purely subjective, but measurable and indisputable! Camp, we then asserted, was a unique educational institution — a “classroom without walls” Ninety-eight percent of campers reported that they made at least one friend, and fifty-eight percent said those friendships lasted beyond the camp experience through in-person visits, texting, phone, and online communications (SeriousFun Children’s Network, 2013c). that provided the yang to school’s yin. Camp is the true north of a young person’s moral compass and social character. In retrospect, I posit, we might have been preaching to the choir! It occurs to me, since there was not a grassroots, nationwide chorus of “ah has,” that the sway of this study might have been di luted in the jargon of “research-ese”: ten constructs, youth development outcomes, camper growth index, and so on. I’ve been pondering this hypothesis since the time we “celebrated” the survey’s results. I wondered why, even though we shouted from the rooftops and stood on soapboxes, passionately extolling the singular importance of camp as a vital component of a child’s education, the noncamp people — those who have never had or whose children never had a camp experience — didn’t embrace the news as being crucial to their child’s success and happiness. Almost a decade later, the SeriousFun Children’s Network (formerly Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, founded by Paul Newman), a lso conf ident about the unparalleled value of a camp experience “At camp, Justin gets a reprieve from being different and gets to be among kids that make him feel like he’s just like everyone else.” “To me, camp is home. People are loving and supporting. My friends here are kind and fun. I know that even if I’m not with them, they are in my heart.” “Camp shows me I can.”
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