We send our children to Camp to reap the many benefits sending your child to overnight camp gives them. Benefits like building confidence, independence, resiliency, problem solving, building lifelong friendships, and learning to live in a community setting with people from all different cultures and backgrounds.

What is the value in sending your child to Emma Kaufmann Camp?  At EKC, we prepare children for life’s journeys through connections, values, growth and fun.

We live in a world that is full of connections.  In fact, we seem to always be connected to our phone and email, our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and our blog posts.  While being connected is good, we still need to be connected in a different way.  The connections we build at camp are authentic.  They come easier because there are no distractions.  A summer at EKC allows our kids to be connected in a whole different way to the things that are really important to us.  When they put down their devices and their school year priorities, the connections they make during the summer are deep, rich and healthy.

Camp allows our kids to establish their own identity.  At EKC, we live each day through the lens of our Jewish values.  Whether it’s “respect,” “compassion,” “good speech,” or “kindness,” we are always exploring new ways to incorporate these values into our daily activities.  These Jewish values are no different from the basic “human values” we all strive to instill in our children.  At camp, we live by these values in order to teach kids how one can live a good and meaningful life.

By learning to be independent, confident and resilient at camp, kids experience individual growth.  Camp is the ideal setting for kids to take “safe risks” that they will learn from and that will ultimately help them grow as a person.  Camp is the perfect place for kids and young adults to practice making decisions for themselves without parents and teachers guiding their every move.  Choosing what activity to sign up for, choosing which friends to hang out with, and choosing what they want to eat.  Making these choices results in improved self-esteem and greater independence in our kids.  These attributes will allow our kids to achieve their goals in life and to play an active role in their local communities.

At EKC, we’ve got the fun covered.  Camp gives kids the opportunity to break free of the overly-scheduled routines of home and school and just play.   Camp is fun all day long.  It allows kids to try new things and discover what is fun to them in ways they never thought possible.  Tubing, knee boarding, The Blob, The Rave, soccer, tennis, basketball, hockey, ceramics, arts and crafts, horseback riding, zip line, climbing wall, camping, cooking, robotics, dance, gymnastics, jewelry making, drama, Israel Day, Maccabi Color War.  Need we say more?

As I enter my 20^th summer at EKC, I think about what a formative experience camp was for me both as a camper and staff member.  Camp connected me to my husband.  We met and got engaged at camp overlooking Cheat Lake.  Camp connected us to the people who are now our lifelong friends, many of whom stood under the Chuppah at our wedding.  Camp taught me to live the values that have now guided me at every turn, and that I will now begin to instill in my 1-year old son.   Camp taught me to be confident enough to go away to college 400 miles away from my parents.  It’s the reason I knew how to be in a community living situation, and share a tiny dorm room.  It gave me the confidence to meet people I didn’t know, and to understand and be accepting of people from all different backgrounds and cultures because of those I had met at camp.  Camp gave me some of the most fun, meaningful memories I will ever have.  I am lucky that I get to still experience this fun as an adult every summer at camp.   Camp prepared me for life’s journeys.

Rachael Speck

Associate Director