Summer camp experience teaches kids how to play

Published 6:54 pm Friday, May 11, 2007

By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Judith Stanton has the zeal for camping of a 6-year-old.
That might be because the three-year director of Camp Rosenthal was that age her first summer at the 530-acre facility with 60 buildings and a private lake on Clawson Road, northwest of Dowagiac in Berrien County.
Stanton, of Union Pier, has a master's degree in social work.
She has a 25-year background in youth development, including in Illinois for Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) for 10 years.
"In college I became very interested in people," she said, "which led to a stronger interest in young people and how they can develop to their maximum potential – and how easy it is for any young person, particularly challenged with an urban environment, for something to take them off their developmental track."
She moved across Lake Michigan to make her vacation home her fulltime home. In 2005, she became director of the camp which was in full preparation mode Thursday with dozens of volunteers painting, planting and repairing in preparation for an onslaught of 1,000 youngsters in six sessions. Each session accommodates 160. There are three five-day sessions and three 11-day sessions.
Campers will be met by 40 counselors. Cooks and other support staff swell that number to 60.
"We're a little city," she said.
Counselors come not only from Chicago and Michigan, but also the Netherlands, South Africa, France and Russia.
"When we say, 'We can offer children the world,' we're not kidding," Stanton smiled. "The diversity of our staff is an opening to other cultures."
In addition to inner-city Chicago children served, Camp Rosenthal also stages Camp Leo for Berrien County Intermediate School District and Camp Civitan for the Cass County club.
"I have a long history with the organization," Stanton said. "This was the camp I came to as a child" in the 1950s when it was much smaller, affiliated with the YMCA and known as Camp Arthur.
"It really is coming home," she mused May 10 in her office while volunteers ate lunch in the dining hall that seats 280 overlooking the water.
Her favorite place as a child the summers she was 6 and 7 was the campfire stadium across the lake which is being rebuilt with new seating.
"My camping experience had a tremendous impact on me," Stanton said. "Certainly in terms of my love for nature. I ended up living in Michigan. I'm not on the lake, but Union Pier's a resort community in Harbor Country. It's interesting that I'm back at the camp I went to as a child."
Camping "is a powerful youth development model," in Stanton's estimation. "I truly believe it is the experience of a lifetime for a child to get away from their families – in many cases for the first time – and come to camp. They gain independence and community. It's overwhelming to them. They're submerged in nature and many of them, for the first time, are learning how to play. Camp teaches kids how to play. In the inner city, there are dangers associated with being outdoors. Even if those dangers were not present, we're in a technological age where kids are in front of computers and TVs and on cell phones. Not playing in nature nearly as much as they should. Play is their work. If they don't play, they cannot develop properly. You learn so much through play. We have to keep everything clean and organized, keep our environment clean and safe and look out for each other. Be a family, bond together, get along and resolve problems in an appropriate way. Camp lets you do all of that. Parents say to us all the time, 'My kids are more responsible now that they've been to camp.' "
"It's amazing to them to see all of this space," she said, "and the wildlife that's here – white-tailed deer, geese and swans nesting in the marsh. "The potential for learning is so great – environmental education, social development, leadership development, teamwork."
Stanton remembers campfires as "magical."
"Even if you're not telling lots of stories, just being there together, looking at the lake, looking at the campfire, laughing together, making s'mores," she said. "I came two years when I was 6 and 7 – the youngest camper here. My older two brothers and my sister were campers and I was the baby watching them get their things packed for camp. I begged to come. Those were different times. Our parents had to get us here," compared to transportation provided today.
"What I remember is the relationships kids build that shape their confidence," Stanton said. "I remember how wonderful my counselor was. How supportive she was and how much she made me feel gifted, that I could do anything. She protected me and kept me close to her, and my siblings were here, too. (Campers) get opportunities here that they don't get anywhere else – not school, not church, not home. We're with the children from 7:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night, from breakfast to activities such as swimming, boating, archery, high ropes, low ropes, bicycling, arts and crafts, fishing, hiking and environmental education. Then there's lunch, and more stuff. Then there's dinner, and an evening activity. No one else gets to spend that kind of quality time with children. That's why camp is so powerful. Parents don't get that kind of concentrated time with their kids except maybe on vacation."
"It seems as though it was easier to grow up as a baby boomer than it is today," Stanton observed. "Our childhoods seemed longer because we got to be kids longer. I remember summer as chores in the morning, then play all day. Chores after dinner, then you could play until the sun went down."
Stanton realizes few people in Dowagiac are familiar with Camp Rosenthal, "and that's something we would like to do something about. We would like our Michigan neighbors to know we're here and to have some partnership with the Michigan community. You don't want to be isolated in the community in which you exist. We would like to serve some of the many economically disadvantaged children in Michigan."