Sep
12
2012
Lessons From My Cap
I spent the past two summers working in
Camp Simcha, a camp for children with cancer. For two weeks each year, the campers can forget that they’re sick, and just have fun all day. Most of the campers have little or no hair, so the rule in camp is that everyone, staff members included, must wear a head-covering. This keeps the campers from feeling self-conscious or different, as they do so often during the year. Simcha is a place where everyone belongs, and it was my job as a staff member to encourage that. I don’t normally like to wear caps but putting one on in the morning became something I looked forward to; it was an action I was doing that would make a positive difference in a camper’s day.
Of course, when I put on my cap in the morning, it reminded me to be grateful for my health. But it also showed me something else. I realized that there’s always an opportunity to make people feel more comfortable. Not necessarily in such a distinct way as covering my head in Camp Simcha, but every day, in different situations, there is something I can do to make someone else feel good, even if its just a quick smile. It may not always be the thing I want to do, but life’s not always about what’s comfortable for me. The lesson I take from my cap is to be sensitive to others and put their needs before my own.
How did you get your start as a camp counselor? I was a camp counselor for 4 years at a camp I attended as a child so I know that rewarding feeling you get from working with young children. Being a camp counselor, as I’m sure you’ll agree, is something that everyone should do at least once.
I wasn’t actually a counselor in this camp, I was a specialty staff member, but I had a rotating camper every day to give her real counselor some time off. (This camp is one-on-one counselor-camper because of all the work involved in taking care of the kids.) But yes, even though I was with my camper for only a certain amount of time each day, I did get that rewarding feeling from helping out, etc. I am still in awe of the regular full-time counselors though!
I worked in another sleep-away camp, too, where I wasn’t either a counselor, but I did sleep in a bunkhouse with the youngest campers. It was a camp with special-needs children so that was also very rewarding, and it was nice because I became like their rotating counselor.
It is such a beautiful thing, to donate your few vacation weeks to special children who need you and love you. You are an inspiration to me, Judith. Really.