ircle of Tapawingo began in August 2002 with 32 campers
from the greater New England area. The program has enjoyed remarkable growth, and this past summer we had 109 campers supported by
60 volunteers, yet another special week where young girls learned that they are not alone in their grief, that it is OK to
smile while holding fast to their memories.
We designed this program so that our youngest campers, eight year-olds, could return to Circle until they were 12 when they would 'graduate'. Three years ago we began a Junior Volunteer program. By inviting back some of our graduates who had reached the age of 15, we will grow our own counselors! Eight years ago, none of us could have foreseen that the Circle experience would become that far reaching for so many young girls.
The days at Circle are filled with swimming and tubing and canoeing, and softball and basketball and soccer, and arts and crafts and hip-hop and team building. We take a few minutes for morning cleanup (a very few minutes) and squeeze in a rest period. Evening activities include campfires and the annual Circle birthday party and Circle of the Stars Talent Show.
Meals are among the best times of our week. It isn't the food, but the order-followed-by-chaos that fills the dining room. We start out acting respectably. We sing grace, and serve and clear our tables in an orderly way. Then the singing begins and order breaks down as we all chant, "Hello, my name is Joe, I have a wife, a dog, and a family, I work in a button factory..." The words are meaningless, and are accompanied by wild gyrations. Campers and counselors become one goofy group as we sing and stomp our way through silly songs.
This program is exceptional and unusual in that every counselor at Circle is a volunteer. We range in age from our early 20's to our late 60's. We all love children and we all love camp. Why else would we sleep on army cots with plastic mattresses, brush our teeth with cold water, and shower only once every three days? Does it matter that the temperature often dips into the low 40s and we are sleeping in open bunks? No! We go to bed in our clothes and then wear them to breakfast the next morning. We are happy, and just a little smug at being so cheerful about our discomfort. Our happiness surrounds our campers and invades the inner places where many of them have locked away their smiles. As one camper wrote on the rock she placed in the Circle Memory Garden:
We couldn't have asked for a better endorsement of our program. Circle of Tapawingo has changed the lives of countless grieving young girls. We are very, very proud of what we've created.