The first director’s blog for Summer 2024 is a special one as we are celebrating our Camp Airy Centennial – 100 summers and counting. It has been a wonderful week – an exciting camper arrival day followed a great staff orientation, and in what seemed like a nanosecond it’s already Shabbat. Oh, and it is pretty cool to see the new Camp Airy dining hall taking shape. There’s a new feature to notice every time we walk by heading down or up the hill.

All of this ties together with the concept of HOSPITALITY. Hospitality was our value of the week for Week 1. And if you think about it, it was probably a key value during Week 1 back in 1924. Camp was created as a place for boys to spend part of their summer away from home. They were hosted by staff who welcomed them – and fed them, and did activities with them, and help meet their needs. That culture of hospitality is what promotes staff and campers to return year after year, also what attracts new people to join those staff and camper ranks. It’s that spirit of camp that has thrived for 100 summers … and counting.

Camp has evolved over the years – when things started 100 years ago, we didn’t have any traditions. Traditions happen over time. Every tradition we have began as a new idea. The energetic, ruach-filled, song and dance filled Friday night that we celebrate in 2024 was not a thing in 1924, nor in my first summer as a camper in 1984. It has come to be in the past 10 years, and it’s one of the coolest traditions we have in camp. New people may not know the songs and dances, but they learn through the attention and hospitality of others.

During Saturday morning Shabbat services, we take time to recognize nominated campers and staff who demonstrated the middah of the week. Those “mensches” (good, selfless people) are awarded certificates, a bracelet naming the value in English and Hebrew, and a photo opportunity together with the Mensch mascot doll.

Some of those images accompany this blog post. Congratulations to these HOSPITALITY mensches!

Please keep following what’s going on up at camp through our wide array of information – emailed updates from Unit Leaders and Division Heads, Facebook and Instagram posts, daily posted photos, and our new microposts via your Campanion app.

Shavuah Tov – have a good week,
Marty