YMCA Camp celebrates 50th anniversary

Scattered showers and passing rainclouds were not enough to damper the spirits during Thursday night’s celebration of a half-century of day camp programming for the Meeting Waters YMCA.
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YMCA Camp celebrates 50th anniversary By Chris Garofolo | Aug 09, 2014 Photo by: Chris Garofolo Zoe Chaves of Chester sprints to get out of the rain Thursday night during the 50th anniversary of the Meeting Waters YMCA Lewis Day Camp. Avery Martin of Brattleboro signs his name Thursday on a poster board designed for campers, both past and present, during the Meeting Waters YMCA celebration. (Photo by: Chris Garofolo) View More... SPRINGFIELD — Scattered showers and passing rainclouds were not enough to damper the spirits during Thursday night’s celebration of a half-century of day camp programming for the Meeting Waters YMCA. Huddled under the Lewis Day Camp pavilion, dozens of campers of all ages and their counselors marked 50 consecutive years of offering summertime activities for children across the region. During the second “Family Night” of the season, longtime advocates with the facility spoke glowingly about the level of service at the gold anniversary gathering. “We want to thank you for recognizing what we do,” said Dr. Vernon Temple, chairman of the Meeting Waters YMCA Board of Directors. “I think you know we work on a triad of ideas for our mission,” he said before the crowd, citing youth development, healthy lifestyle and social responsibility as the three pillars. “We could not do it without the campers, the parents who support those campers and give us the support we need; and the donors that we have.” The ongoing rain did not seem to bother anyone as guests snacked on raspberries and ham salad sandwiches. Parents watched a slideshow of the most recent batch of campers swimming, making art work and establishing lifelong friendships. Every visitor was given a name tag to identify them as a camper or a counselor; both titles were accurate in some cases for some people. A mini-sized diorama of the camp grounds was centrally displayed on a picnic area under the pavilion. Steve Fortier, executive director of the YMCA camp, said he was delighted with the number of former staff members who attended the event. “Over the past 50 years, life for parents and youth have changed a lot. In our early years, the ‘child care’ aspect of our day-long camp was not as important as it is now,” he said. “Until the last decade, most kids spent much of their summer days playing in the outdoors — running around, using their imaginations, playing as a group and developing all the skills that come along with that — sometimes through disagreements and temporarily-hurt feelings,” Fortier told the Eagle Times. “Yet, even back then, the value of bringing together young people from a bunch of different communities, on a site designed for summer camp programming, and surrounding them with caring, skilled leaders who facilitated a purposeful curriculum was significant.” Counselors and campers quickly filled a timeline with their autographs, signing under the decade they attended the facility. Most of the signatures came from the present-day campers; this summer approximately 273 children attended the eight weeks of camp. In total, Fortier said the camp has serviced an estimated 12,000 area children since the 1960s. “We still produce all of the amazing outcomes of the past — meeting new people; developing new skills through hands-on learning; improving group and social skills; practicing our four core values (caring, honesty, respect and responsibility). Today, we are also an antidote to what is ailing far too many of our young people,” Fortier added. Two abutting bulletin boards featured updates from the 2014 camp sessions — one displayed profiles of the summertime counselors affectionately known as Professional Role Models, the other showcases each camper’s smiling face inside a personalized star. Aaron Wallace, a counselor from Springfield, came back for a second season on the job. He called it a fun working environment filled with adventure and great people. Wallace, along with the other dozen-or-so counselors, proudly wore their gray Professional Role Model T-shirts during the event. Each role model assisted with the ceremony by fixing snacks or overseeing the archery range during the brief moments of sunshine. “I think it’s [about] the great relationship with the kids. They definitely are building a lot more character between each other and they always say how much fun they’re having. And we try to make the activities interesting at the same time,” he said. As the clouds drifted away, energetic children converged around the struggling campfire, bringing it back to life once the rain ceased. “It’s great to see the excitement of the kids, the excitement of former campers I think is really heartening. Hopefully the camp will still be around in another 50 years,” said Paul Kinson of Grantham, New Hampshire, who first attended camp with the YMCA in the late 1960s. He was the senior-most camper to attend the Thursday night festivities. “I think it shows the strength of the Y. It has great programs, great people and it is a testament to how great the Y is that a day camp program can survive for 50 years,” Kinson said. “I remember doing archery. We built lean-tos — we strapped logs together and put branches over the top — we spent the whole week building them so then we could have a sleepover Friday night. I remember swimming lessons, the Y is where I learned to swim and that helped me later in life as I went on to swim competitively and I coached swimming as well.” Not long before Kinson spent his first summer with the YMCA, founder Alan Halberg and the Meeting Waters Board of Directors started the day sessions in June 1965 on a piece of donated land in North Westminster named Camp Weetomp. It was relocated to a borrowed property in Saxtons River a decade later before, after a successful capital campaign, the Bryant family’s Meeting Waters Farm on Missing Link Road in Springfield was purchased in 1985. The following year, the pavilion was erected to accommodate 125 campers and was dedicated to Terry Brown. Soon, Camp Weetomp transitioned to the Lewis Day Camp in honor of the Robertson Paper CEO Samuel Lewis and the facility relocated permanently to the 52-acre property in Springfield. The in-ground swimming pool and changing rooms were installed in 1994. The firepit, amphitheater and stage were constructed 11 years later after receiving donations from local volunteers and businesses. Just last year, the camp became a Summer Food Program site to provide free, healthy lunches to more than 90 percent of its campers each day.