Spots are still available for Summer Camp 2012, but they are filling up fast! If you have any questions whatsoever, don’t hesitate to call the office at 315-675-3651 or email vkcenter@vk.org. Can’t wait to see you all this summer!

On Saturday, April 21st, 46 volunteers descended on to our summer camp and retreat facility with one goal in mind – get this place looking nicer! Armed with our new facilities director, Nick Gray, we set to work on our most ambitious Spring Cleaning of all time. Large groups from Luther Memorial in North Syracuse and Amboy Belle Isle in Camillus headed the charge on two huge projects – cleaning up around the outside of the lodges, and getting the insides of the lodges painted.

All told – the ENTIRE upstairs of Robert Lodge (5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a long hallway) got a brand new coat of paint. These two church groups worked hard with summer camper Malerie Belles and her mother Nancy to get the place looking fresh, and that they most certainly did! Laura Sauta, her daughter, Kathleen, and friends Elizabeth and Reagan took the biggest room and made it look wonderful. Joyce and Irene from Amboy Belle Isle even returned on Wednesday, and with the help of Lynn Myers from King of Kings in Liverpool, they knocked out the upstairs in Frank Lodge as well! Neither lodge has ever looked better, and our retreat groups and summer campers will most certainly be grateful for that!

But let’s not sell short what the kids did last weekend. Hoards of children (all of whom will be coming to summer camp this year, I believe!) raked with the help of local volunteer Dave Currey to get all the leaves up from around Robert and Oscar in time for our open house. Pile after pile (after pile) of leaves and pine cones found their way on to the wagon, and then wagon rides took the leaves to go be a new compost pile near the community farming project. The lawn is absolutely sparkling, and with buds forming on the trees, it rates to stay that way for quite a while!

In spite of all of the bad weather, we got great progress done on some of our gardening efforts as well! John Dromms and his crew of boy scouts got to work putting down a gravel foundation for the shed for our community garden, which he is building for his Eagle Scout Project. 2 volunteers from Amboy Belle Isle also got their heads together and cleaned up last year’s garden, which will be used this year for herbs for the kitchen, and possibly even for a pumpkin patch!

Shane McGregor and his boys came out, and Shane got the road graded and fixed with new gravel (which his company VERY generously donated!). For at least a while, there won’t be any bumps or potholes as you drive in to main camp. I think we can all give a big 3 cheers for that!

Volunteers who were less interested in going out in the rain, or in painting, stayed back in the office, and stuffed nearly 500 envelopes with summer camper information for 2012. James is eternally grateful for this, as it saved him a lot of paper cuts! Having those envelopes ready to address and send out greatly streamlines our communications, and we’re so thankful for this work! I’m looking at you, Betty, Jerilyn, and Anita!

Perhaps the most ambitious project of the day was led by Dave Brynien from Luther Memorial. He and a team of staff and volunteers tore up the kitchen floor in oscar, and got to work replacing all the rotten wood underneath from old leaks. In one day they managed to do all the demolition, replaced all the rotten wood, and laid sheets of wood for tiling to go on top of. Our staff finished the job throughout the week, and it’s looking fantastic! So inspired were we by this project, that Bill Myers came up and worked with Nick to get cracking on a bathroom floor in Robert that was having similar problems. Retreat guests and summer campers now officially do not have to worry about rotten wood anywhere in any lodge, and we’re pretty proud of this progress!

And hey, we’d be remiss if we didn’t thank Becki and Jeff for preparing such a wonder lunch for us!

Of course, not every volunteer can be listed in this write up. 46 is an awful lot of folks to come out just to help us! Needless to say, we continue to be energized by all the folks who work so hard to keep Vanderkamp going – and by all the people who believe as we do that summer camp can be more than just a good time. God bless everyone who came out, and we can’t wait to see you all again soon!

This picture from Summer Camp last summer sums up so many parts of what Vanderkamp is, all at once. Dom, pictured on the left, pretends to be cold, while his new friend Andrew pretends to warm him up. The coolest thing about this picture, though? That Andrew and Dom are still friends long after summer camp has ended. These two young men likely would never have met each other if it they hadn’t come to camp in 2011, and it was until they spent a week here in our experiment in Christian community that they saw how much they had in common. A picture paints a thousand words, and this one really does it perfectly. Two kids being silly, having fun, and what’s more: understanding that Christian summer camp is all about letting down our guards, learning to love ourselves, and making friends that last a lifetime.

We hope to see you here this summer!

When Pastor Paul Herpich from King of Kings in Liverpool first approached me about doing an Alternative Spring Break – a short term experience in mission, I was really excited. I fondly remember my mission trips as a youth, and hadn’t been on one in a while. It was with great anticipation that we planned and promoted this event, and one thing after another fell into place. Lutheran Disaster Response gave us a generous grant of $500 for food and transportation. Lynn Myers offered to come and be a nurse for us. Pastor Paul and Pastor Anita Mohr from Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Utica each found a young person willing to go on the trip, we got two brothers from Dolgeville, a youth (and former LIT from St. Mark’s in Baldwinsville signed up, and Wendy Simcoe from the Morrisville Presbyterian Church was able to drum up a youth as well. The brother of a Vanderkamp summer camper decided he’d give up his Spring Break to help serve the folks in Schoharie County as well – and there we were: 12 people from in and around the Syracuse area, ready to go and contribute 2 days of seriously hard work in an area that really needs help.

We started off by simply getting to know each other. Other than the 2 brothers who came – we had little to no experience with one another beforehand. We talked at length about our life priorities, interests, and goals on Tuesday. Gary Roller from Lutheran Disaster Response came to help us prepare mentally for what rated to be an emotional experience, and YNN generously sent us a DVD of their “After the Storm” special. After Tuesday night, we were prepared for just about anything – but nothing would have prepared me for the incredible things I saw in those next two days.

When we arrived in Schoharie, we were greeted by volunteer coordinators who relayed distressing news to us. 8 months after Hurricane Irene passed through Schoharie, displaced debris was still scattered throughout the countryside, and as many as 100 families were still out of their homes. Since our group consisted of rather unskilled laborers, we were put to work clearing debris out of a thicket between a farm and a church, and out of a stream across the street from that same church.

This area was simply covered in trash. As a father, I was particularly moved when we discovered what amounted to a drawer full of folded baby clothes and balled up socks – presumably left in a home somewhere by a caring mother or father – only to be swept away miles from any residential area. Others found Valentines, baseball cards, the whole sides of houses, nearly the entire inventory of a tire store 2 miles away, and much more. The major problem we faced was that much of this debris was across a stream where trucks could not get to it without driving through someone’s farm, and volunteers could not retrieve it without walking through the stream and soaking their shoes, or walking quite a ways to the nearest crossing. Our incredible teens quickly got to work building a bridge, braving the water and mud so that we could more efficiently move trash from the far side of the stream to the road, where other volunteers could load it onto a truck to remove it.

Early on in the morning, we faced one very obvious problem. There was a block of tightly wrapped cardboard and wood that weighed several hundred pounds, was soaking wet, and nearly impossible to wrap one’s arms around. Our teens, who had met just a day earlier, worked remarkably well together to brainstorm how to solve this problem, and ultimately got the block over to the road. There is something particularly satisfying about cleaning something up that you can be pretty sure would have been left there to clog waterways and cause more damage in the future. And all of it was done without any adult prodding or prompting.

Perhaps the most inspiring thing for the group of us that trekked out from our summer camp was the amount of volunteers in Schoharie who dedicate themselves to working to do disaster relief around the clock – for no fame and less money. We met a contractor named Bill who had already worked on refurbishing 4 homes, and he related some incredibly sad and also heartwarming stories. He told the story of the local District Attorney, who was ready to move out and give up on the area before volunteers came in and inspired him to stay. He told stories of older folks who refused to quit on the town they love. He told us one particularly inspiring tidbit: above all, it was people of faith who had come to help when FEMA decided to move on.

Perhaps the most incredible people in Schoharie spend their time working at the “Loaves and Fishes” cafe – a makeshift cafe for volunteers (and anyone who is hungry) in the Reformed Church of Schoharie. The volunteers there have served lunch from 12-1:30 PM every single day since the storm struck. Every day. The woman who runs the cafe is a private business owner who simply shuts her business down from 12-1:30. Every day. And this wasn’t processed junk – they were serving delicious, fresh food, donated by local people who care. I enjoyed a divine tomato-basil soup apparently prepared by the Cobleskill Fire Department. That same woman even approached me the next day, excited because she had found a vegan lentil-barley soup to meet my vegetarian needs.

Spending time in the Loaves and Fishes cafe was great for both our adults and our youth. We were thanked countless times for our efforts, and treated as distinguished guests. People opened up to us, and welcomed us as brothers and sisters. One couple related to Anita and Lynn that they had been out of their homes for the last 8 months, living with friends, while their home lay empty. Instead of complaining about their plight, they simply thanked us for what small amount we were willing to do to help. The spirit of the people in Schoharie was all at once humbling, inspiring, and sobering. These are amazing people who are willing to stop at nothing to rebuild their town, and who are committed to showing radical hospitality to anyone who comes along to help.

In our first day on the job, our group completed what had been slated to take us two days. Did I mention how amazing our youth were? They did this thankless labor tirelessly, with literally no complaint. On the 2nd day – feeling self conscious that they would be bored – I asked if they wanted to see a new work site. They seemed confused by the idea. They wanted to finish what they started. So we headed back out to clear another area near the church, pulling thousands of pounds of debris out of yet another creek. Our youth did this so fast that it looked like we needed a new place to go after lunch, when the volunteer coordinator rounded up two gentlemen who canceled their afternoon plans to come out with a truck and help us move the debris from its spot along the stream to a central point where another dump truck could remove it once and for all.

All in all – the idea that we were able to move a huge amount of stuff out of these areas so that Schoharie can continue to learn to live with what is now “Normal” for them was so satisfying for us. We’ve already begun planning a trip for the fall, and we know we’ll be back out there next Spring as well. No group of volunteers is too small to pitch in down there. If your experience is anything like ours, you’ll be welcomed with open arms and put right to work – helping out in an area that desperately needs it. The Lutheran Disaster Response team believes it will be 3-5 years until Schoharie recovers. What can you do to speed up that time table? If you missed out this time around and want to be on board for next time, call the office today and we’ll put you on the list!

My name is Samuel Mbaja. I was born 37 years ago on Mfangano Island on Lake Victoria in the western part of Kenya. My island is approximately 70 square miles with a population of around 16,000 people. Standing on the world’s largest tropical lake, and the world’s second largest fresh water lake, Mfangano Island is one of the most spectacular and serene places I have seen in my life. My house stands right near the waterfront. I grew up on a diet of fish, and did a lot of fishing. Besides fishing, we also keep livestock, and do farming.

I came to the US in the fall of 2007 to begin graduate studies at Syracuse University. I experienced culture shock in a number of ways. To mention but a few, coming from a society where family and friendship form the foundation of one’s life, I suddenly found myself in an environment where I knew no one at all. I tried making friends, but soon realized that friendship can mean a different thing here than it does in my place. Food looked and tasted different, not to mention the difficulty in understanding American English, which would have been handy for ordering food at the school’s cafeteria. Having grown up in the tropics, the cold winter months were unbearable. I would insist on wearing my big winter coat even while indoors to the amusement of my friends.

Things began to look better when I incidentally ran into Pastor Gail Riina, the Lutheran Campus Ministry chaplain in the summer of 2010 at the Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University. She was then doing research on wireless technology, and thought my island would make a good case study. She interviewed me for the research, and later invited me to attend her Sunday services at the chapel. I did, and have been an LCM peer minister since the fall of 2010. I have made lots of friends by attending various events organized by the LCM. It is through LCM that I discovered Vanderkamp – easily the second most serene place I have been to. The first time I went to Vanderkamp was in the spring of 2010 when we went for an overnight peer ministers’ retreat. I immediately fell in love with the place because, in more ways than one, it reminded me of my home. I particularly like the lake, the sunset, the woods, and the birds singing at dawn. I remember wishing that I could live there for the duration of my stay in the US.

A chance came for me in the summer of 2011, when James Davis – the director of Vanderkamp whom I had met earlier that spring – agreed to my request to stay at the camp for a week as a volunteer chaplain. I went to the camp with lots of apprehension about how the kids at the camp would treat a person from a different culture like me. I had heard that American kids can be rude and disrespectful to older people, especially those that speak with an accent like I do. However, my fears were misplaced because I found some of the nicest people I have ever met. From the staff to the kids, everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome. Before I knew it, what was supposed to be a one- week stay turned out to be four wonderful weeks at summer camp. Psycholinguists say the best way to learn a language is by immersion. This could not be truer in my case; the many conversations I had with the campers significantly improved my American English language skills. I know this for sure because when I went back to school at the end of four weeks at Vanderkamp, my American friends at SU remarked how easy it was to understand me. They wondered whether I had been taking ESL lessons during summer. I enjoyed the games and activities at the camp; especially boating, fishing, archery, arts and crafts.

Finally, I would like to thank James, Taylor and their son Ollie for inviting me to stay with them during the winter break of December 2011 to January 2012. Winter breaks can be so lonely on a residential campus like SU because most students are away and the place becomes a ghost town. While at the Davis’, I was able to make great strides in the children’s book I am working on. I particularly got a lot of help from Ollie, who would read with me one of his favorite books called Unstuck. I also had the opportunity to read a number of Ollie’s books, which gave me an idea of what form my book might possibly take. Thanks to Taylor for teaching me how to make those special Christmas cookies (I forgot what they are called, but I sure remember the recipe!), and for throwing a birthday party for me. I look forward to visiting Vanderkamp again before leaving for Mfangano Island.

During summer camp last year, we came up with all sorts of creative and crazy relay games. This one was invented because we were thinking of doing a banana relay, but had no bananas! Instead, summer campers tied down their thumbs and tried to cooperatively peel an orange. After that, they tossed the orange peels to see if counselors could catch them in their mouths!

The whole activity was full of laughter, insanity, and fun. It didn’t matter if campers were big or small – everyone had the opportunity to join in the silliness. At Vanderkamp, we strive to do activities that challenge kids’ creativity by presenting them with opportunities they never have tried before. Sometimes it’s something a little more serious – like a ropes course – but sometimes? Trying to peel an orange with your thumbs tied down does the trick!

Oh, and a bonus picture, just because we love you. Hope to see you this year at summer camp 2012!

Come out to Vanderkamp for Summer Camp in 2012 and build character and confidence in a setting that allows you to just be you. We’d love to see you come and find creative solutions to our wacky games, but also to make amazing friends and interact with loving and fun counselors. Call 315-675-3651 to reserve your spot today! Want to visit and have a blast? Our open houses are on April 22nd and May 19th – just 45 minutes from all major cities like Syracuse, Rome, and Utica!

C

We’ve had so many exciting developments in our Community Farming project that we just needed to share! People have been coming out of the wood work to volunteer time. Marcellus Presbyterian Church is bringing their youth group up to help with planting in May, and other smaller groups have agreed to help with planting as well. Pat Wallace will be helping us get the irrigation system in place, and John Dromms, an Eagle Scout Candidate, has agreed to bring his troop up to build a shed to house tools for volunteer use. The project is expanding even beyond what we thought it would be!

More greenhouses have agreed to donate plants as well, and it looks like we’ll meet all of our need for seedlings and seeds without spending a dime. How blessed are we? In addition to the generous gifts pledged by C&J Farms here in Constantia, Vollmer Farms on Collamer Rd. in Syracuse has agreed to grow us some special tomato and pepper plants, and Joe Van Slyke from Rosalind’s Garden Greenhouse in Durhamville has pledged a number of herbal plants – how generous! Carol Watson Greenhouse in Lafayette is also enthusiastic about our project, agreeing to give all sorts of things, from tomatoes, to winter squash, and leafy greens!

With all of the generosity we’ve received so far, we still have needs. We have some volunteers coming up to camp for our Spring Clean up Day on April 21st, and we’ll have garden work to do then, for sure.

Dennis Wiltse – a local farmer (and former employee from many years ago!) has agreed to come plow the land at the cost of fuel. WOW! You may know Dennis from his INCREDIBLE blueberries on Route 49.

We’re so excited to begin to convert a portion of our summer camp into a local farm for organic food, and so energized by the outpouring of support. Thank you so much to all of our new partners, and please let them know how thankful you are to them for supporting our project if you ever get a chance!

We look forward to seeing you all this spring and summer, and sharing our harvest with you!

Vanderkamp Center is a Christian Summer Camp and Retreat Center that is doing its best to serve local people in need. Want to contribute? Send a child to summer camp? Book a retreat facility? Email vkcenter@vk.org or call 315-675-3651. God Bless!

Okay, summer camp here is really, really fun. We allow kids a lot of choice in their activities, and we spend a great deal of time planning to have a fair community that lacks rules strictly in place for adult convenience. But what we’re most proud about is the relationships that form here. Sometimes that’s between campers, sometimes it’s between staff – but one of the coolest types of relationships that can form is between summer campers and staff. You see, young adults aren’t always the greatest role models for kids. Think back to what the seniors were like in your high school when you were a freshman. Did they always have the great ideas about how to spend time? Think about stories surrounding the young adult athletes in the media. Not always the role models we’d wish they’d be, right?

Vanderkamp is the one place where parents  in Central New York can rest assured that their children we be exposed to positive young adult role models. Our summer camp counselors are trained in cutting edge child development theory through a Christian lens to ensure that every single child that comes here is treated with love and respect. We’re trying our best to live out Jesus’ message to love of our neighbors as ourselves in the extreme. And what happens when we do this? Incredible relationships form. A bond exists between our campers and staff that is unlike anywhere else. Kids know that they are loved for exactly who they are, and are encouraged only to love themselves, their neighbors, and Christ, more. We believe this is how young adults and kids should be interacting. Our summer camp counselors know they are role models – they relish in it – and they take it very seriously. See if your child wants to be a part of the magical environment here this summer, and we can promise you won’t regret it.

When I was in sixth grade, I was bullied pretty consistently by one specific person. I walked around the hallway each day for several months fearing that he would corner me and attempt to intimidate me. He never hit me or physically attacked me in any way, but the threats were so consistent that it ate away at my ability to reason. He threatened that if I ever told anyone, I’d be in serious trouble. So I didn’t. Eventually it stopped, but the remnants of that bullying still lives on in me today.

When I was a summer camp counselor, I bought fully into the “zero tolerance” approach that’s very common in schools today. Any time I witnessed any bullying, I would take the bully aside and, well, bully him. I’d use threats that he would be sent home from camp, that his parents would be disappointed in him, and told him that I was disappointed in him. Sometimes this worked, and I’d pat myself on the back. Sometimes it didn’t, and I would consider the bully a lost cause, figuring that I’d at least tried my best. I used this approach through 2006, and thought myself a proper crusader against bullying.

Fast forward to 2011, when I took the job here at Vanderkamp. I had read countless books on child development at this point, and had begun to believe fully that most problems that happen between children can be prevented before a cure is ever necessary. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of curse, as they say! The major steps we take at Vanderkamp to prevent problems between summer campers are as follows:

1) Supervision. If there are always counselors present, then bullying is far less likely. Since our sleeping arrangements are set up so that kids are almost never fully alone, would-be-bullies have almost no opportunity to pick out their prey.

2) Enthusiastic participation. My counselors and I are constantly excitedly engaged in all of our summer camp activities. Not only does this make the activities simply more fun, it also ups the ante for us in terms of how we are supervising. It’s one thing to stand idly by with one’s eyes on a soccer game, and it’s a totally different thing to be in that game as a physical and spiritual presence.

3) Constant, growth mindset affirmation. All staff members here are trained to constantly be seeking the good in people and pointing it out. When children are constantly being built up by people whom they look up to, they are far less likely to feel the need to assert themselves by bullying others. Most research points to bullying being a manifestation of a loss of control in a child’s life. When a child accepts that a hierarchy exists where some people are better than others, he or she will naturally try to find people worse than him or her. If, on the other hand, a child is constantly affirmed in a way that values virtue, the child will be more likely to try to demonstrate virtue. Since bullying is very clearly going to garner negative attention, almost all children will opt to take the readily available positive attention instead.

4) The “No Discount” policy. “No Discount” is a phrase that’s uttered any time someone says something to put down himself, someone else, or an activity. It simply means that we strive to accept everyone at their full value – that we don’t want to take away from anyone or any thing. This creates a natural, self policing, positive culture. Children are free to point out if a counselor is discounting something (typically their own singing voice!), and are free to point it out to each other as well. It’s a very easy and non-confrontational way to point out when a conversation is trending toward the negative. The “No Discount” policy acts as a first responder to any potentially tense situation. It immediately de-escalates things regardless of whether people say they were “just kidding.” When people know that put-downs are unacceptable, they are a lot less likely to do them. When staff and children are empowered with a tool to help snuff out mean behavior at its roots without having to make a judgment call as to whether it was “only a joke,” teasing never spirals out of control.

Now last summer, we did not have any instances of bullying, so the “What do you do when it actually occurs?” question can only be answered hypothetically. But here’s a simple fact: bullies come about not because they are inherently bad, but because they come from very difficult life situations. We believe the Christian response to bullying can be found in the way Jesus treated people from tough walks of life. We believe that bullies, most of all, need to be shown compassion. You see, bullies are used to being mistreated. They expect it. It’s par for the course in their lives. They often fully believe that some people are the bullies, and some people are the bullied. When caught and bullied by an adult, they will accept it, and often humble themselves before the adult. But when the adult is gone? They seek to fill the role of the bully. Instead of trying to threaten and intimidate these bullies, we will seek to ask them questions. What makes you want to be mean to him? Have people been mean to you? How did that make you feel? Would you want someone else to feel that way? Has anyone treated you that way here?

Loving them for who they are, even if it's a pipe cleaner monster!

The root cause of bullying is not an inherent evil in any child. The root cause is the terribly difficult things going on in that child’s life. One can’t scare the difficult circumstances out of a child’s life. One can’t threaten, or cajole, or bribe that child into compliance. As always, the answer starts with love. Now if we believe a child will continue to make things unsafe for others who come here, we are unequipped to have that child stay at summer camp with us. But we’ll make sure that any child who comes here leaves feeling loved, even if he or she has to leave early because he or she never resonates with the environment we create.

Send your child to Vanderkamp this summer to see what all the fuss is about. Regardless of how tough your child’s life has been, Vanderkamp is the safest summer camp in central New York.

It’s an interesting life, being a director who works at a summer camp that has a rather tribal song about Chocolate pudding, that serves chocolate pudding every week, and even sells t-shirts that say, “Chocolate pudding, Vanderkamp’s favorite dessert!” The pudding mania has grown so thick at our summer camp that a particularly strange species has emerged from the depths of Vanderkamp lake. That creature? The pudding monster.  Here are some survival tips if you encounter a pudding monster:

This pudding monster is repelled with frozen pudding and flash photography

1) Pudding monsters are driven by 1 thing: their love of pudding. If you hear one screaming “pudding” while running through camp, point in any direction and say, “pudding,” and you should be okay.
2) Will occasionally mistake any brown substance for pudding, so pointing towards mud works too.
3) Due to long, dark hours in pudding pits, pudding monsters have sensitive eyes – flash photography scares them away.
4) Pudding monsters show up around noon on Wednesdays, but due to the heat, only survive for about an hour before the pudding melts off and they return to their normal selves. Stay ready with a camera during FOB and you and your pudding will be safe.
5) Pudding monsters can be distracted with frozen pudding, a.k.a. ice cream.
6) Pudding monsters are totally safe for summer campers – only your pudding is in danger.

Following these 6 simple guidelines should keep you and your pudding safe at camp this summer. Pass them along to your friends, and remember, pudding monsters are just people who are strange enough to put pudding on their faces and in their hair.