Summer Camp

This is the moment at camp when the energy everywhere becomes absolutely electric. The campers are enjoying their last rotation of activities and everyone is clinging to these precious opportunities to make their beautiful crafts, reach new heights, hit bulls eyes, be with the horses, go on the zip line, or learn to roll a kayak. The ceramics have been glazed and are in the kilns being fired. The bird houses, tie-dyes, and weavings are being finished up, rinsed out, and tied off. Campers and counselors are squeezing in last rehearsals before their big performances on Wednesday. At just about every minute something is culminating in completed creations, hard-earned accomplishments, and mini-celebrations. Truck loads of campers went off to Dolly’s Ice Cream Bar today to celebrate swimming enough laps to become “Mermaids,” and for running enough miles to make “Rockbrook Runners.”

In the dining hall at dinner, the excitement from the thrills of today gave way to crackling anticipation for tomorrow. Sharp shooting campers will be competing in Riflery, Archery, and Tennis Tournaments with the boys from Camp Carolina. Campers will finish up their last day of the activity rotation. And tomorrow night we will all get to experience the long-awaited CA Banquet! The fun and mystery of this favorite end-of-session celebration is already beginning as the CAs wrap the dining hall in sheets to conceal the hard work of their Banquet theme and decorations as they set up. The dining hall will remain cloaked from view until they are ready to welcome everyone into the dining hall for their big surprise dinner event tomorrow night.

The cheers and squeals of excitement continued to echo over the hill side past sundown as campers shared their last evening programs together with their individual Junior, Middler and Senior lines.

It’s so hard to imagine how much is packed into a session here at Rockbrook. And theses last few days of our camps, the air everywhere is utterly sparking with enthusiastic activity, friendships in full bloom and a collective commitment to cherish every split second of every last moment together.

Today at Rockbrook, campers and staff alike showed off their talents to the enjoyment of all. It is always a joy to see how girls take every opportunity they can to share their artistic and creative side with others. This Sunday these talents were musical, inspiring, thoughtful, physical, silly—the imagination of campers never ceases to amaze!

Every Sunday morning, campers come to the dining hall for breakfast in pajamas. Afterwards, everyone dons their “whities,” or red polos if they are staff members. Next comes flag raising on the hill, and then the whole camp community walks silently to Chapel for some singing, thoughtful remarks, and reflections. Today’s theme was “Gratitude,” which comes at a perfect time in the summer, allowing us to pause and reflect on all the wonderful things that have happened this Second Session. It was a special Chapel program because all of the Junior Line plus their counselors sang a song together, accompanied by camp mom, Marie, on the guitar. As the Junior Line was serenading, campers and staff were given pens and little papers to write down one thing that makes them feel grateful. The answers to this question ranged from concrete items like family, food, and pets, to more broad things like friendship, wildness, and peace. All these grateful notes were collected after chapel, and hung up on the dining hall porch as a visual reminder of the diverse, exceptional community at camp, and the multitude of things we can be grateful for in our lives.

In the afternoon, campers had the chance to show off more than just their singing ability at our RBC’s Got Talent show! This is an event put on by our hard-working CITs, and it gives every cabin a chance to display a special talent.

A Senior cabin performed a Jazzercise routine using dance moves related to camp: move your trunk, going down the slide, running on the trails. We saw an angry grandma, a crazy babysitter, and a little mermaid who would rather be a bird than a human! One cabin made their own rendition of “Copacabana” in which every camper was featured, and another cabin showed off a talent of each camper—including reciting 100 digits of pi! The energy in the gym was contagious, and campers enjoyed watching and performing for their friends, knowing they were supported, encouraged, and applauded no matter what.

The ability to not only be yourself at camp—but the craziest, silliest, funnest version of yourself—is a special feature of Rockbrook that cannot often be replicated at home, school, or in extracurriculars. We love seeing the boundless creativity of campers, because it reminds us that they are both taking full advantage of the space to feel free at camp as well as the loving community that surrounds and supports them.

Throughout the session, girls have signed up for three different activities in the hopes of traveling to Camp Carolina for the end of session tournament. The first activity with the opportunity to go to the tournament is tennis! Each activity period, girls walk down to the clay courts with tennis shoes on and racket in hand. At the courts they practice their groundstrokes and volleys by playing a variety of tennis games. This year, we also added three new pickle ball courts to our tennis area for a new game for the girls to learn and enjoy.

The second activity is riflery. In riflery, girls venture down the front driveway and wait for permission to enter the range. Once there, they have the opportunity to pick their favorite rifle to shoot at the target. Each of our rifles have their own special “sweet spot” and over the session the goal is to figure out the sweet spot in order to hit a bullseye.

The third activity is archery. With hair back, close-toed shoes, safety glasses, and arm guards attached, girls step up to the platform to try and shoot the golden circle in the middle of the target. It’s a huge accomplishment to get a bullseye. In fact, many girls go back to the range in attempt to hit ten bullseyes in order to receive a golden arrow. If a girl hits fifty bullseyes they get a cake and one hundred bullseyes earns a golden bow.

It’s getting close to the end of our camps and the tennis, archery, and riflery instructors are in line to make an announcement at dinner. Most of the girls in the dining hall knows this means the participants of the tournament are about to be revealed! Those who continuously take these activities usually get their chance to travel to Camp Carolina to participate in the tournament.

While at the tournament girls have the opportunity to partake in some friendly competition! Often times the girls arrive wearing matching t-shirts, eye black, or bucket hats to show their cohesion. When we first arrived the girls were excited but a little nervous. As soon as they stepped onto the courts and the range they felt excited, confident, and comfortable. Girls cheered on and encouraged one another as they waited for their time to shine.

At the end of the tournament the girls are always concerned with who won but overall the tournament is about the girls stepping outside of their comfort zone and having fun! They love the opportunity to see another camp, cheer on their friends, and to show off the talents they worked so hard at practicing.