Well, it is now the end of August and camp is over for another year!  All the costumes have been washed and put away, the supplies are in hibernation for the winter.  But yet, as you look around camp, you can still see and hear the campers.  You can hear the laughing and singing, you can see the sparkles and posters.  The campers have touched each one of us in so many ways this summer and so the memories remain vivid in our minds.

A colleague asked me how it is that we determine if camp has been "successful" this year.  We could start by looking at the number of campers and LIT's who attended camp - 824!  All three camps ran at above 94% capacity this summer.  Looking back over the past  few years, this year saw a significant increase in the number of new campers (232 new campers is 2010).

But we can't just look at the number of campers who attended, or the number of new campers we had.  We have to look at the experiences that our campers had.  We certainly can't just add up the number of dance parties, climbs up the climbing wall, pranks or songs sung to determine a level of success. 

Perhaps the only way to really know is to have been there.  To have been there to see the campers and staff having the best time, learning new skills and meeting the objectives of our program. To watch the campers make new friends, develop confidence, and try new things.  To hear the speeches the campers made at the end of the week.  To feel apart of such a special place. We could see the difference that camp was making in the lives of our campers.  

From this perspective, it feels like it was a pretty huge success.