An All Girls Camp . . . Disaster or Delightful? One Girl Spills the Truth [View all]

[redqueen]

http://buffalogrove.patch.com/blog_posts/an-all-girls-camp-disaster-or-delightful-one-girl-spills-the-truth

What happens when you put 300 pre-teen and teen-aged girls together? The answer might surprise you.

My 14-year-old daughter breaks my heart every summer as she joyfully hops on her camp bus to her so called “home away from home”. She leaves this Sunday so I asked her if she’d write my July blog for me. I didn’t tell her what she could or should write about and this is what she gave me:

Every summer I go to an all girls’ camp in Northern Wisconsin. Not only is my summer camp for girls, but it’s also for unity, the strength to be courageous, and most importantly sisterhood. The average person probably doesn’t understand why we camp girls get so excited every summer. They think to themselves, “Who cares if blue team or white team wins? It’s just a color.” or even the classic “Why would you want to spend 4 to 8 weeks of your summer six and a half hours away from home?”

Well to all of you non-campers, those 4 to 8 weeks of our summer means more to us then just learning to ski around the lake or making a pretty necklace in arts & crafts. Yes, those activities are important, but the real reason we go to camp is for the thrill of knowing that we are truly loved and cared for no matter who we are. At camp you’re allowed to sing at the top of your lungs even though you are probably tone-deaf. And at camp you’re allowed to join archery even if you can’t aim like Katniss Everdeen. No matter what age, race, or personality, every single girl is cared about and loved unconditionally.

My parents absolutely love that I go to camp. They love that I’m free to be whoever I want to be and I’m in an environment that I will be accepted no matter what. My mom loves that I can be a dancer, or a skier, or even a gymnast at camp. Although my dad loves these things too, I think he also loves that there are no boys at camp. Because there are no boys, the pressure to change who we are to impress the boys has been lifted off our shoulders. We don’t feel the need to wear makeup or act a certain way. We feel beautiful in our skin because at camp we are loved for our pure and true self.

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