Sunday Snippet: Building Our 2015 WeHaKee Team!

It’s been an exciting week at WeHaKee!  Staff orientation started earlier in the week as young women from throughout the United States and around the world arrived at camp. They travelled from Virginia, Washington, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin as well as from Australia, Germany, Ireland, South Africa and the United Kingdom. We have women who will be entering college in the fall to those who have graduated and our classroom teachers.

Orientation opened with lots of name games and team building exercises in order to begin the creation of our staff team.  Followed by extensive discussion and exploration in the topics of youth development, age group chracteristics, group development and dynamics, activity leadership, cabin cohesiveness, behavior management, effective communications, along with safety protocols and procedures, program planning and implementation and emergency procudures.

This group has been exceptional in their welcoming spirit and inclusiveness, easily grasping onto the concept of helping others gain a sense of belonging – one of the most critical skills necessary to be a successful and effective Camp WeHaKee counselor.

They also bring a wonderful diversity of personalities from the thoughtful and insightful introverts to the enthusiastic and energetic extrovert; from the well-organized and methodical to the creative and spontaneous; from the artisitic and introspective to the athletic and energized!  The group is displaying a breadth and depth of talents, skills and abilities that will serve all of our girls well.

And they have truly embraced the WeHaKee values of Community, Truth, Compassion, Peace and Justice showing their ability to convert the meaning of our values to action! And they do it all while having exceptional fun!!

We are at the halfway point of our orientation schedule and are sliding more into the activity skill assessments and program exploration – and the activity level is on the increase over the next several days.  In short, they’re getting to ‘play’ more as they begin to prepare themselves for the arrival of our first campers on Monday, June 22nd!

We are grateful for these young women and all they have brought to the shores of WeHaKee Camp for Girls and we are honored to be working with them throughout this summer!  And if you’re lucky enough to be joining us this summer, you are going to love them!

Have a great week everyone!