Dear Camp Kawartha Families,
After 19 years and after 19 incredible summers, it’s time for me, like many great staff who serve Camp Kawartha, to move on; to use what I’ve gained at Camp Kawartha and apply this to other and new directions of my professional life.
It is also time to re-dedicate myself as Director to my family and cabin counselor to my children. (In truth, I’d only be the Assistant Director as my wife has been handling the Director duties for many years and not to relinquish that role anytime soon).
It was a different world and life I lived when I first heard of and applied to Camp Kawartha in 2003. It was pure chance that I discovered Camp Kawartha at all – when I leafed through a community magazine in a dusty Mom and Pop Burger Shop and happened upon an advertisement for Camp Kawartha. “80 Campers Per Session,” was the by-line which caught my attention after attending much larger camps and looking for a change.
I got hired over the phone by then Summer Camp Director Sherri Owen and stayed the next 19 years starting as the Leadership Director in 2003 and 2004 and then as Summer Camp Director from 2005 to the present. The role precedes meeting my wife and starting a family. Without Camp Kawartha, my life would have evolved very differently. With certainty, I would not have met my wife, whom I met in Peterborough, a city I had never even visited prior to discovering Camp Kawartha, nor known the joys of my two sons. I would have never met some of my best friends in the world and the many great people that I have had the privilege of being associated with through my years at Camp Kawartha.
I became Wham in 2003 and, with that alter ego, experienced an exciting and challenging journey that molded the person I have become today. I went from a young man of 33 to a middle-aged man of 51. It was an excellent use of the prime years of my life. I worked as a team member with a trusted, hard-working and dedicated staff – many of whom, especially in more recent years, are former campers whom I once told bedtime stories to at check-in.
They have all been exceptional summers; all connected like chapter in a book and no two the same. Some have been more challenging than others, but all with an urgency to envelop campers and staff in the summer camp experience and offer an unforgettable summer of joy and growth.
This current summer may have been the most crucial in righting our course both from a continuity point-of-view and building a camp culture that we want to set forth in-line with the needs of our campers; providing them with the tools and skills they might need to cope and master their future. A former staff member, Eureka, once said to me, “the camp experience makes you expect more of yourself and what you want to contribute to this world. “ Camp allows you to self-actualize; providing a safe space in an authentic environment for self-exploration while pushing your comfort zones and boundaries of growth. It’s a relationship and communication skills incubator allowing you to hone skills vital to surviving and thriving in the real world.
The camp experience and our expectations of returning as a right-of-passage were challenged in 2020-21. This pandemic has created doubt into some of our most cherished and nourishing experiences. Running this summer was no guarantee even at the start of June, but the momentum was with us as were our camp families encouraging us on. “You can do this, you have to do this for our children,” was the common rally cry. While Camp Kawartha was fighting for financial stability, collectively, we all were fighting to sustain own emotional stability. We understood how vital running this summer meant on both fronts. Returning to camp with its value on relationships and access to the life lessons that camp provides – all within the playground of camp – has given us guidance to the way forward and the possibilities for 2022 and beyond.
We are in a time where the challenges of the world are great and significant, many would say too great to overcome. Camp Kawartha is both a respite to step away from the weight and stress of those challenges but also a lab to build, refine and enhance our skills to give us the confidence and appetite to take on these challenges. Our experiences at camp push the boundaries of our comfort zones. It gives us new perspectives while co-existing for 2 months with others and sharing ideas, visions, values, strengths and knowledge – all this prepares us to return to our world as better functioning citizens with the drive to bring light to where we might encounter darkness.
I leave with the regret of not seeing future summers at Camp Kawartha unfold; of new challenges emerging that has kept me in tune and relevant to the younger generations. Camp Kawartha is a fountain of youth – keeping those who work here young, no matter the age, and in touch with the aspirations, dreams and priorities of its staff and campers.
I know the camp is in good hands. The staff ranks are laden with the experiences of leaders that grew up and thrived here. One of those bedtime stories I told many years ago was to a cabin of young girls including one named Emma Robert (Geller) who became my Assistant Director this summer. In a summer requiring an incredible amount of prep work, flexibility and diligence toward COVID protocols, Geller has an exceptional capacity for work and for learning. She is undeterred by adversity in reaching her goals, the camp’s goals. The level of integrity she carries herself with is matched only by most exceptional people I have ever worked with. Continuity of our mission, with the inculcated values of summer camp, is assured to endure and be strengthened under her guidance, leadership and precocious insights.
One of the greatest pleasures of being summer camp director are the relationships I have cultivated with our families over the years. The trust you had in me in running a safe and compassionate camp grows heavier in realization in each passing year with the associated responsibility of being morally accountable to the needs of our campers and families. Your assurance, words of support and understanding continues to reinforce our confidence and has been the light at the end of the tunnel that we have been driving toward since we entered this pandemic in March 2020 – and will continue to stiffen our resolve moving forward.
Thank you for supporting Camp Kawartha by not only sending your children here, but being a partner in the summer camp mission and as a stakeholder in sharing in both our successes and setbacks.
It’s impossible to imagine what life would have been like if I never saw that advertisement one wintery morning in early 2003. It’s once again time to open my life to chance allowing new paths and opportunities to present themselves. My Camp Kawartha identity will remain a fixture in my life and in my decision making in solving challenges, in overcoming obstacles and in spreading the camp gospel that is needed in our children’s lives more than ever!
Yours sincerely,
Adam Strasberg
Leadership Director (2003-2004)
Summer Camp Director (2005-2021)
