happiest
place on earth but when I was a kid I
would have disagreed I would have said
summer camp is the happiest place on
this planet most kids look forward to
Christmas and that feeling that you
would get Christmas Eve or Christmas
morning would be the feeling that I
would get when I was packing my bags to
go to camp or on my way there every
single year just like clockwork from the
second that I signed up for a summer
session I was already excited for the
summer to me going to camp beet trips to
the beach he beat Kenny would it be take
a shion’s it’d be every single thing
that I did all year round it was more
fun more profound and more entertaining
than any other thing I did in life I’ve
been very lucky and fortunate that my
parents sent me to summer camp first
when I was 8 years old and then almost
every year since and then when I was 16
I changed my life just a little bit more
and I got a job working at Girl Scout
camp Camp Red Wing there’s an old saying
and it goes you never want to be next to
three different types of people in the
airplane someone who just got married
someone who just got a new job and
someone who just got back from summer
camp and it’s true after I came back
from working at Camp it was all I could
talk about for two months and you could
ask my friends everything we would talk
about we’d be at cross-country practice
or we’d go out and we’d be talking about
whatever it was and I would say oh well
this one time at camp or you know I
worked with this girl this summer and
she did this and it just went on and on
indefinitely and I’m sure at some point
my friends got annoyed with it my
parents for sure gotta know that for a
while I’m pretty sure they weren’t even
sure if I miss them at all but the
reason I was like this the reason why it
was so profound for me and I had to talk
about it was because it was a complete
life changer summer camp
is an all-inclusive experience and
there’s no place quite like it I’m up
here in front of you today to tell you
that sending your child to summer camp
could be the most important thing you
could ever do for them and the most
important gift you could ever give them
and here’s why
summer camp is a completely unique in
non-traditional environment and like I
said there is no place on earth that is
quite like camp now of course there are
thousands of camps across this cut
across the globe but they all have
around the same core values a camp your
child will learn empathy and friendship
and love and what it means to be
themselves they will learn confidence
they will learn to overcome adversity
and to celebrate you their failures and
it’s all due to the environment that is
created by the staff by the campers by
the administrators and by the ideas
themselves it’s not uncommon for an
eight-year-old girl to go to camp and
know no one there and they’re put into a
tent with three other girls that they’ve
never met before in their entire life
think about how you would feel that in
that situation this girl’s going to be
timid she’s going to be shy and it’s
going to be hard of her to talk and make
friends and of course you know as
counselors you cracked a few jokes no
one laughs it’s terrible but by the
second day something really amazing
happens it’s as though these girls have
known each other all of their lives they
are best friends and how is that how
could something like that happen when it
takes years to forge a friendship in
other environments well for one at camp
people aren’t afraid to be themselves
it’s perfectly normal to be exactly who
you are and the reason that is so is
because there’s nothing that Bond’s
people together like maybe sleeping in
the tent
for the first time or being caught in a
massive thunderstorm and it rains for
three days straight or singing silly
maybe slightly embarrassing songs that
breaks the ice it breaks down the walls
and it makes it easier for these girls
to get to know each other from an honest
standpoint and not only the girls make
lifelong or just children in general
make lifelong friends at center camp the
people that you meet at summer camp
aren’t quite like the people that you
know and our friends with at school the
people that you meet at camp are going
to be different you’re not going to be
like you and the only way that I can
kind of describe this to you why this is
is I’m going to ask you to imagine a
situation imagine maybe it’s your first
day of college or first day on a new job
and you walk into a cafeteria and there
are 20 tables all filled with people
you’re going to walk in and you’re going
to immediately make judgments that
you’re not even aware you’re making
you’re going to judge them on what
they’re wearing what they’re saying what
they’re eating and what they look like
and in split seconds in the split second
without even your conscious knowledge
you’re going to judge the people at
those tables and you’re going to sit
down at a table full of people that you
deem to be most like yourself that is
one table what about the other 19 tables
of people so often we are confined up
confined by the walls that we build up
ourselves
and we don’t even know it we’re
isolating ourselves from ninety-five
percent of people that we know because
we’re afraid of difference we’re afraid
of things that we don’t quite understand
and so the people that you do meet at
camp they’re going to come from
different economic backgrounds they have
different family backgrounds maybe they
come from different parts of the state
different parts of the country different
parts of the world and for kids this is
a groundbreaking experience because
sometimes young kids are isolated you
know they’ve lived in a town all their
lives and they’ve gone to the same
school all their lives they know around
the same people and they see the same
people every day and
people for young kids changes them it
helps with their capacity for empathy
and understanding and it’s almost
infinitely expanding the way that once
they can extend understand one person
then they can understand others and we
live in a highly divisive world and you
don’t need me to tell you that but
there’s really nothing more important
than preparing our youngest generation
to overcome adversity to solve problems
and collaborate over differences and
come together over what divides us and
that’s what kids learn at camp
which brings me to my next point so not
only do you make friends not only these
kids understand others and meet others
that are different they also learn to
defeat problems to overcome those
challenges that we face every single day
and I can’t there are a lot of problems
maybe it’s a campers first time ever
being away from home for a significant
amount of time maybe they’re homesick
maybe they’re picky eaters and they have
to figure out what on earth are they
going to eat all week in the dining hall
and trust me that’s a common one maybe
they can’t swim or they’re afraid horses
and their mother unknown we signed them
up for a horse camp perhaps it’s more
complex than that maybe they have to
navigate their way through a high ropes
course or complete team-building
challenges together these are all things
that kids are going to have to do while
they’re at camp how do they solve them
well I can’t people are celebrated for
exactly what they bring to the table
nothing less the things that you bring
to the table are your most important
gifts they’re what you can contribute
and kids are celebrated for that not
only that but they also are
collaborating with their peers and
they’re doing all sorts of things to
break down these barriers and learn to
defeat these problems
it’s so easy to put people in boxes we
do it every single day we do this in
school we do it at work we do it
everywhere and it’s important to
celebrate the successes that come from
failure and that’s something that we do
not do in school you know for kids
especially in young kids you know if you
can’t do math you’re not a mathematician
if you can’t write sorry kid you’ll
never be a writer can’t draw you’re not
going to be an artist and if you can’t
play music you’re not a musician and
that simply isn’t true it is actually a
known fact that every child is an artist
and every child is a musician there’s no
one that learns better and there is no
one as more creative than young kids so
why is it that we put them down if we
could put them build them up if we could
teach them to celebrate the success that
comes from failure failure I appreciate
the journey like we do at camp we have
much more rounded well-rounded students
and well-rounded individuals and
citizens there are eight-year-olds out
there that believe they are done and
that makes you think how can an
eight-year-old possibly believe they’re
dumb they’re eight right but somewhere
along the line this kid maybe they
failed a test or perhaps there was
something that their peers could do that
they couldn’t and that idea was planted
in their head it’s terrible so
ultimately we need to learn a little bit
from camp and to put that into our
schools we need to bring kids up when I
was 11 I went on this camping trip
it was three days was with a Girl Scout
camp and I canoe down the Allegheny
River every night we would stop at an
island and we would build our tents and
make her own food and filter I own water
and it was incredible you know not a lot
of 11 year olds
perience those kinds of things but for
me when I was 11 it wasn’t very hard I
wasn’t really in charge of anything I
wasn’t responsible I wasn’t worried and
I could do it no problem perhaps other
than maybe a few physical difficulties
such as being tired at the end of the
day really it was very easy now life is
funny as it often is and I found myself
going on the same trip as a counselor
being asked how bleeded help management
manage it and do all these things and
from the second that I found out I was
terrified I was thinking about all the
things that could possibly go wrong what
if I can attempt what about the life
jackets what if it rains the whole time
drowning
you know the such big feel it fears when
you’re actually responsible for lives
and I was thinking how on earth am I
being trusted to do this well my parents
don’t even trust me to do the laundry it
was crazy
right so of course the night before I
was very nervous I barely even slept and
I woke up the next morning and we
gathered the kids and we went and so
incredibly and so startling to me which
it shouldn’t have been everything went
exactly as planned
other than a raccoon some really nasty
sunburn everything went so so well and I
was so shocked the girls had a great
time I had a great time and I can
honestly say that there’s not a single
event in my life that has changed me and
has been more profound than those three
days now of course I was afraid
throughout the entire trip I was afraid
but I was okay because it’s okay to be
afraid
I actually remember I was handed this
map right and it was a river guide and I
was sitting in the canoe and I was asked
is that island all the way over there
the same one that is on this map right
here I looked at it and I was like II
don’t think so and so I kind of looked
at it from another angle and I was like
uh I don’t think so like I really think
we’re lost I have no idea where we are
call the helicopters they’re gonna have
to come rescue us and find us I was so
freaked out in that moment and
ultimately Google Earth works just as
good on rivers as it does on roads so it
turns out we weren’t lost we were
exactly where we thought we were but I
was afraid and it just goes to show that
it’s so easy to get worked up it’s easy
to get afraid in moments when you don’t
know what’s going on and it’s easy to be
afraid in situations that you’ve never
been put in before but when you’re with
the right people when you’re in the
right kind of environment when people
trust you and that’s an important one
you’re always going to meet the goals
you’re always going to do what you set
up to do in this trip i working at camp
as a whole built my confidence which
brings me to my aunts point at the end
of my sophomore year i was desperately
lacking the confidence that I needed to
go through life and this is going to
sound very cliche and anecdotal but at
this time last year I was sitting in
class watching everyone else give
intelligent passionate intriguing
interesting TED Talks and I thought to
myself I could never do that
I could never stand up there like they
are and be so vulnerable and exposed and
speak in front of all those people like
that and there is no way if I hadn’t
worked at camp that I could ever in a
million years be up here and not only
did camp do that for me that’s what it
does for kids it’s very important for
kids especially young kids to build up
their confidence to know that they are
good at something and that they are
valued especially for girls now there is
this very pervasive classroom stereotype
and we think it’s gone away
it hasn’t you know if a boy is in class
and teachers asking questions and the
boy raised his hand and answers all of
them he’s smart what is a girl she does
the same thing she’s bossy she’s rude
she’s a know-it-all and a whole slew of
worse things right so it’s very
important for girls to know that it’s
okay to take up space to be themselves
to raise their hand and to have positive
role models that comes with camp maybe
it’s an older friend or the counselors
these are all positive people that girls
see being themselves and loving it and
which will help influence their lives so
many way in so many ways and for years
believe me years down the line will they
remember perhaps one of the most
profound moments of my summer I was with
a group of girls they were older 14 15
and they were discussing exactly what it
was that made them come back to camp
year after year what exactly brought
them back what made them sign up and pay
all that money to come you know was it
the canoeing riding horses their friends
what was it right and this one girl she
says you know at school people don’t
really like me I kind of get made fun of
a lot I don’t have a lot of friends and
I find myself not speaking out I keep my
head down but here it’s different people
think I’m funny people genuinely like me
for me and when I walk into a room not
only do I feel welcome but I feel needed
and I’ve never had that anywhere else in
my entire life and upon hearing this I
how incredible is it that that is the
environment that she is in a cap that
this place gives her somewhere to be
herself to fear herself to feel welcomed
to feel wanted how incredible and how
even more existential and amazing that I
was part of that I couldn’t believe it I
was part of something so much bigger
than me so much bigger than anything I’d
so in conclusion I want to touch upon
one last important thing when I came
back from summer camp people said that I
was different you know dressed different
talked different I like different things
all these things about me that weren’t
quite the same as when I left and it’s
true there are a lot of things about me
that are different it changed my life
I’ve said that time and time again but I
am going to directly contradict myself
and say no not really all those pieces
all those parts all that passion and all
that confidence was all there before but
it needed the right environment the
right nurturing the right people the
right presences the right need for it to
come out
that’s all it needed and I actually
found myself after camp after I got home
saying I felt so good this summer and
when I’m at home I feel disingenuous now
because I can’t be me
now I have to fix my life and I set out
to fix things and stop doing things that
made me unhappy and start acting the way
I acted this summer so they didn’t feel
disingenuous so I did I didn’t feel bad
they felt appreciated for who I was 100
percent of the time
that is the gift that you can give your
child think about it you can give your
child the gift of friendship and empathy
indifference and the ability to overcome
adversity the ability to celebrate the
success that comes from failure a
lifelong love for the environment and
you can give them confidence and not
only that you can give them a place of
their own and you can give them love
what an incredible gift right now this
is going to sound again cliche and then
a godel but so often we just don’t let
kids be kids you know they have tennis
lessons soccer clinic travel basketball
all these things that they have to go do
that take away from the what is most
important their relationships their
character themselves so please decide to
give your kids the greatest gift you
could ever give them and send your kids
to camp thank you [Applause]