Marwood - A Living Tradition 

What Keeps Marwood A Living Tradition…

How Camp Changes and the One Thing That Hasn’t

April 2024

If you’ve been to Marwood as a camper, you might not recognize it today. There are three main things that keep camp changing every year to keep it new, relevant and “a living tradition”: Fourth Year Council, a Review community forum for camper input, and a counselor class and curriculum choice process that is unique and particular to Marwood.

During Marwood Jr. High Camp, our 4th year campers serve their peers as members of the Fourth Year Council. This group includes all the 4th year campers who meet for a short time daily with a counselor.  The idea of the council is to be aware of everyone in camp, and all the happenings at camp. If there’s anything that needs addressing or anyone struggling, it’s brought to the camp council. We can make changes during camp if need be, or just adjust a bit. This gives our campers immediate response and change where necessary. They are the creators of the community, with the counselor group supporting them.

During our annual camp Reunion, we have Camp Review. This is a community forum in which we break up into small groups, with a counselor in each group, and we remember camp together. We ask about how camp went…what we liked and didn’t like, what we would like to change or be sure to do again, what new things we would like to add, etc. Camper input is encouraged and recorded. As we explain at the beginning of the Review process, the counselors use the input from this process to plan camp. The counselors are a group of volunteer adults made up of alumni, parents, spouses, and friends that have been touched by and had our lives impacted by this camp. We want to plan a camp campers are interested in attending, because we’re doing it for them!

The counselors know that camp is fun and meaningful for the campers when the counselors participate and create fun by having fun. Working in groups of 2 or 3, counselors write and coordinate the classes and programs they lead. Using the Camp Review forms as a guide, counselors create a schedule with fun and meaningful programs. This gives campers counselors that believe and care about what they are passing down to the next generation.

The counselors facilitate the creation of safe space for a group of lucky young people to come together. Those young people create safe space for each other to be and grow in unconditional love…and that is what brings in the Marwood Spirit…and that is the cycle that continuously touches our hearts and keeps us coming back… and that has not changed.