Together Apart: Reflections on Family Camp-at-Home

By Colleen Triezenberg

“Together apart” was proven to be the theme for the two spring Family Camp-at-Home Weekends hosted by North Star Reach. As families gathered on Zoom during the traditional Sunday closing slideshow, one last “camptivity” was asked of them. Their goal was to come up with one word that captured or represented their Camp-at-Home weekend experience. “Love,” “campily,” “renew,” “connect,” “resilience,” and “together apart” danced across the screens as campers proudly held up their family’s chosen word. Those in the camping profession know that camp is routinely full of surprises…but somehow these words caught me off guard.

Building community is a common by-product of camp activities. As a program director, I always thought that this was because campers, families, and staff were experiencing everything at the same time in the same place. However, after two back-to-back online family camp weekends, the question that left me pondering was, “How is it that we are still experiencing the same community feeling even though we are not physically together at camp?”

Reflecting with the North Star Reach team, we felt when planning the Family Camp-at-Home experience our goal should be to leave intact what made camp our camp. We sent out care packages to each family before the weekend that contained camp “swag” and items used throughout the weekend. These boxes included: camp t-shirt(s) for the entire family, a letter written by our mascot “Moose,” a camp postcard, Newman’s Own Spaghetti Sauce (for our traditional no-hands’ spaghetti dinner), s’mores bars, toilet paper as padding in the box (my personal favorite), a parent resource letter, and other meaningful camp items. The packages were sent priority mail stamped with a Moose sticker that read “Sealed with Love, Gloves and a Mask.” This, we felt, would be the spark that would ignite the excitement of our family camp weekend. As soon as families received their packages in the mail, we were flooded with photos of campers with huge smiles on their faces, like that piece of camp that they were missing was given back to them. In a time when we need to be physically apart due to COVID-19, camper families were able to experience the joy and togetherness of camp straight from their home.

North Star Reach’s family care packages!

From there, we did what we always do best – put on a heck of a camp show! Our camp weekend began Friday evening with a Zoom Opening Campfire, with special guest Free Daps, an Orlando-based rap collective group specializing in freestyle rap, music and comedy. We had our very own volunteers join the fun performing skits and songs following Free Daps. Saturday was a full day of camp activities! Some highlights include: a morning nature walk, a warm-up dance party, scavenger hunt and an afternoon of camp activities pre-recorded by our faithful volunteers. We ended Saturday with a Zoom Closing Campfire featuring performances by our family campers (as well as parents joining in the excitement!). And lastly, we finished our weekend on Sunday morning with our classic Family Camp Slideshow on Zoom; using the photos that were taken by families and collected throughout the weekend on our private Facebook Camp-at-Home Weekend page. We simply did what we always do at camp: We provide the framework and options for our families to belong. They brought the camp spirit and over two weekends of programming, 41 families further connected to camp and each other. The photos displayed families spending the entire day together, playing, laughing, painting, pitching tents and roasting marshmallows over the fire. Families just being families. North Star Reach’s mission for family camps is to create time to reconnect with each other…and yet it was happening within their very own homes. It was incredible to see the amount of joy, connection and love our families had and the amount they gave back to us. So…to answer my previous question, “How is it that we are still experiencing the same community feeling even though we are not physically together at camp?”

Camp is not about the place…it’s about the people. But you already knew that. We can set the foundation, but it is the families, the campers and staff that create the “camp magic,” and the feeling of community. Even though we could not be together in one spot, it still felt like a camp family and that’s all we could ever hope for.

Colleen Triezenberg
Program Director, North Star Reach
TSCS Member
Colleen@northstarreach.org