Hey, Camp Fans!
We love the stories we got this last month for our ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest—Spring edition here at Everything summer Camp! I’m eager to share what we got with our online community and post each one right here on the Blog! I’ve already announced our two prize winners, Healy W. and Donna J. on 
yesterday and the day before. Now we’ll keep going for the weekend with this post and one tomorrow.
All entrants after our winners received S’more Bucks (our campy term for loyalty points) just for their submissions. At Everything Summer Camp, everyone’s a winner. The following post is from Henley S. who wrote in to tell us about her summers at Keystone Camp for the last six years! Here’s her submission:
“Hi, I am Henley S. Hopefully, the 2020 three-week session will be my seventh summer attending Keystone Camp in Brevard, North Carolina as a camper. Keystone Camp is a place where girls can show who they really are and not have to worry about being bullied about their inner selves. I love this camp because our motto is “Other Girl First.” To me, this motto means that if I see another girl getting pushed out of the way, I have to bring her with me and make sure the negative situation stops immediately. This motto also means that when someone is having a bad day I reach out to comfort her, instead of making fun of her because she is crying on her bunk. In my cabin during the 2019 three-week session was a new girl. Her name was MC. MC had come from the two-week session, so it was our first meeting. We brought her into our family because we knew she didn’t have any friends yet. In my third year at camp, I met my best friends who have been with me since we first started camp. Their names are India, Maddie, Kensley, and Abby. Two girls joined us in 2018, Taci and Lauren, and we all make sure to keep in touch over social media and text messages throughout the time we are away from Keystone. We named our group chat from 2019 FourWind Farts. I have absolutely no clue how we came up with this name during the three weeks that we were together, but it just worked. Away from Keystone, we love having group FaceTime calls and texting. We have all figured out when the best time to call or text because we live all over the United States: India and Maddie live in Los Angeles, Lauren and Taci live in Miami, Kensley, Abby, and I live in three different parts of Georgia, and MC lives in Cincinnati. See? All over the United States. My favorite parts of camp are the dances held with Camp Carolina and HighRocks, cabin campouts, and our cabin fun night on the last night of camp. I can’t forget about New Years’ and Camp Prom. One of my best camp experiences was the 2017 Camp Prom. My whole cabin went in our bathrobes and bathing suits; we were promised to go to the swim lake after. This was the best night ever. We swam in the lake for what seemed like hours and then stayed up very late, laughing on each other’s bunks. This was a night to remember. My 2019 cabin fun night was also a special night. It was raining cats and dogs and we all thought that our counselors were mad at us and that they were going to make us go to bed super-early. But Jada, our counselor, made us all put on our bathing suits and our bathrobes. We had no clue what was going on. Little did we know that Leah, our other counselor, went to the store and bought us candy and face masks. Later that night, we went to the freezer behind the dining hall. We peeked inside and stole the Oreos. After our cookie robbery, we went to the Pavilion so that nobody would see us eating them. While we were eating them, we sang our favorite songs and just talked to each other. Jada brought up the fact that the next day was Closing Day for the three-week session. We all started crying, but we got one of our last group 'aggressive hugs' from Jada. We laughed and had so much fun. When we finished eating our Oreos, we took off our bathrobes and danced in the rain. It was so much fun, and I will never forget that night. This is why I love Keystone Camp. It will be very sad to hear that it is canceled because of this pandemic.”
Isn’t it awesome all the wonderful pieces of our lives that summer camp brings us? I’m glad that Keystone has been such a keystone in your life! You and the FourWind Farts sound like a fantastic group. I have high hopes that you’ll all be able to get together again this summer, Henley. Keep your head up about the future—who knows what will happen, right?! To everyone else interested in checking out Keystone Camp, give them a closer look right here. And, as always, thanks for reading!
- John