And what a year it was! We began 2012 with great hopes for the coming year, and most of them were met. We looked to increase the number of kids who were able to experience our beloved camp, expand the programming a bit as well as continue the traditions of years past. We were able to accomplish quite a bit, but were unsuccessful in increasing our enrollment. We jumped a bit in enrollment from the summer of 2010 to 2011 and came close to matching 2011's numbers for this past summer. The good news is that the return rate of campers increased moderately (and consistently over the past 2 years) and that means the campers are having a good time and coming back!
For the year 2013, we will begin differently than we did last year. As we are no longer affiliated with the Capital District YMCA, we are continuing the process we have set in place back in September. We're very close to making a decision which direction we will move towards. We very much appreciate your patience and hopefully, within the next couple of blog posts, we'll be able to break the news. We've heard from a few of you, wondering what's happening next summer at camp. We are able to tell you that we will have Camp for the summer of 2013, our 100th Anniversary!
Because it is the end of the year, we tend to take a look back and put it all in perspective. We see the good things that happened and the not so good things. We saw that campers came to camp and simply had a wonderful time. They played games and they swam in Harmon Pond. They fished and they ran. They made new friends and shared their lives for a short period of time. They sang and they got bug bites. They learned new things about themselves and they enhanced their knowledge of the outdoors. And oh yeah, they had fun.
Some kids were able to do all of this because of donations made by people like you who know the Summer Camp experience is vital for children. We want to say thanks to all the members of the Wa Wa Family for making these donations. If you'd like to contribute before the end of the year, consider making a donation to camp. Send your donations to Smith Park of New York PO Box 4994 Poughkeepsie, NY 12602.
We're on the lookout for pictures from camp! We'll be doing a blog post of "Then and Now" featuring pictures contributed by you. Please refer to the email for the details. Here's a couple of examples-
Max from 2010, 2011 and 2012
Mike from 1982 and 2012
Keeping with the theme of taking a look back, here's just a few pictures from this past summer. They are part of our series we call "Camp is…".
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