On Camp and Community — Guest Post by Kate Seely

My love affair with camp is not unique to me, many of you have experienced this same love. This is the beauty of camp, that there is such a shared story, a shared connection, shared reasons of the special place it holds in each of our hearts. Whether it’s lazy days on the river, singing under the apple trees, the sounds of carefree voices on the Avenue, life-long friendships, or learning to wield a chainsaw, the common thread weaves its way continuously through.

My first summer up at camp was a shocking 25 years ago. With a few exceptions, I have been lucky enough to spend at least a few days up there every year since, if not months at a time, which really is my preference, let’s just be honest. At my first 717 advisory board meeting recently, as we opened the meeting, Kent asked us what it is that makes camp so special for us. It’s not a difficult answer for me to find, especially as I think about what it meant to grow up with camp playing a starring role in the story of my youth. The answer to Kent’s questions is not only what I receive from the ranch – those lazy days on the river, overnights to Emily’s, learning to play the guitar at the Bar 7 – but it’s also the opportunities to contribute to what makes it so special as well, whether that’s chopping wood in the fall, fixing a fence in the summer, taking kids on backpacking trips in the Alps, eradicating thistles from fields, or now, supporting camp as a member of the advisory board. The times that I can give back to the ranch are what makes me love it there just as much as what I reap as the lucky girl that I am to know this place, to be a part of such a place.

And so my answer to Kent’s question centered around community, because of what community means to me. Community is a part of me and I am a part of it. I give to it and I receive from it. I nourish it, and it nourishes me. And when community is healthy for me, there is a balance of giving and receiving, of offering what I can, and taking what I need.

As we approach camp’s 85th anniversary, we’re looking to grow the reach of our community, of the many people who have passed through the Camp Trinity welcome gates over the years. We want everyone at the ranch over Labor Day Weekend of 2015 who possibly wants to be there. Imagine it! Campers and ranch hands from the 1950s and 60s sharing stories with last summer’s counselors. Decades of friends camping out on Friendship Hill because we don’t have enough platforms to house everyone! I love imagining that. A little Friendship Hill commune. ☺

There are also some exciting projects coming up and we want everyone to be involved with the evolution of the ranch. 2013 saw our first intentional campership fundraising drive, which successfully raised $40,000. The same campaign is underway right now and anyone who wants to help send a deserving camper to camp can contribute here. Kent, Paul Wills, and Geoff Ludke just built an amazing pizza oven where the Sunday morning breakfast grills are, promising pizzas for years to come. And coming up, we’ll have some more exciting infrastructure projects.

Along with a few other board members, I’m a part of the alumni committee. Our mission is to reach far and wide and try to bring as many alums as possible back into the camp fold. We’re pretty sure there are folks that would love to reconnect and we want to make it easy for them. As we approach the 85th anniversary, we want to invite everyone we can and have as many people celebrate with us as possible.

With that, we have a few requests:

1.  Update your own contact information here. (We’ll double-check your info against the lists we already have, and make sure to keep this most up-to-date info in our records.
2. Please pass the link along to your friends to do the same. The more folks you send it to, the better! The link is: http://bit.ly/717Update
3. Save the date, Labor Day weekend, 2015, for camp’s 85th anniversary. It’ll be amazing, really probably very unchanged since the last day you were up there.

As I finish this up, I’m thinking of winter on the ranch. The deep green and the sometimes-snow-dusted mountains, the mossy trunks of the old oaks on the eating platform and the kitchen all boarded up for winter, the roaring river and the wet earth, the furry cows, smoke rising out of woodstoves, the overall quiet. And I am looking forward to another summer, camp’s 85th summer!!!, looking forward to celebrating all together what a gift the ranch has been for so many, and what a gift we are to it in the multitude of ways that we help it thrive. Whether it’s picking fruit and veggies for the all-ranch dinner, digging post holes or fixing fences, sending our kids to camp, offering a hand to a friend, blessing each other with music, donating to the campership fund, or simply filling out the easy form above, YOU are the reason we continue to thrive, and we are so grateful.

Please consider joining us Labor Day Weekend 2015. We’ll be so happy to celebrate with you!