After the OVAL (and I mean directly after) I jumped in Jackie’s (Hi Jackie!) car and headed off to camp highlight. 

Let’s start with this: I had no idea what I was in for. This was a non-girl scout camp. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know any traditions. And bonus: it’s still the covid season. But despite all those things, I was truly excited.

When I first got there everyone jumped out of the car and gave me a hug. I had only met these people at a few zoom meetings and suddenly I was part of the family. There were definitely some things that threw me for a loop when I was first moving in. The first one was that the counselors slept in the same room with the kids. This wasn’t all my children in tents with me in the middle counselor cabin. I had two kids in the bunk bed next to me. The second was that this was an all gender space. I had guys, gals, and non binary pals in my cabin. No more single gender space for me. It honestly took me a full day to get used to it. Even after the staff shower party it still took some time. And just to note: it wasn’t something bad. It was just something I wasn’t used to.

Jumping into the day to day: it took some getting used to. But I had great leaders. Yep, I’m talking about the kids. 7/10 of the kids in my cabin had been there for multiple years and they knew what was going on. I also had an amazing co-counselor in my cabin (Hi Joy!!) who helped me with everything. We also worked really well together and in my (completely unbiased) opinion we were the best co-counselors. So by the end of day zero I pretty much had it figured out. Though I would tell the senior campers to lead me places sometimes because I frankly had no idea where I was going.

I loved rooting on the different houses (+5 to house counselor), watching the kids problem solve without counselor intervention, and just watching everyone be unapologetically themselves. I overheard a child say “I would never do a talent show in the real world but everyone at highlight is so kind” and I felt so happy. These kids won’t allow anything but acceptance and kindness when they’re at camp. 

This all went back to the virtues. There are nine of them. Well there are nine official virtues. They are: peace, honesty, generosity, respect, acceptance, courage, responsibility, cooperation, and unity. And boy did these children follow them. They get five points when they exhibit each virtue. They also keep their house members in line so they can earn points also. Rules are few and far between because the children monitor themselves. If a child is having a problem, another one will jump in to help. They might be doing it for the points at first but then they just start doing it. They see how good it feels to help someone and then want to help more people.

There is so much more to say so i’ll have to write a campfire chat about it. But for now that’s your summary of my first week at camp highlight. I just want to say a huge thank you to Chris, Jackie, Paul, Mona, Helen, Justin, Mauricio, Joanna, Ayoko, Greg, Joy, Kai, Karen, Kevin, Krista, Laila, Maggie, Parker, Sammie, and Shelly for an amazing week.