ircle of Tapawingo
began twelve years ago with 32 campers from the greater New England area. The program has enjoyed
remarkable growth, and this past summer we had 145 campers supported by 78 volunteer counselors
nurses, and lifeguards. It was 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.
Girls enter our Camper Program at age eight, and at twelve, they 'graduate' into our Teen Program. At fifteen, they can apply to our two-year Counselor-in-Training (CIT) Program. By bringing back some of our graduates as CITs, we will grow our own future counselors! Ten 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, the annual Circle birthday party, and the 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 early 70'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. They leave with feelings similar to those expressed by this camper in a thank-you note she sent to her bunk counselors:
"My father died four years ago. He always used to give me presents and I miss that. I wish I could tell him that the best present I've received since he died was my week at Circle of Tapawingo."
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.
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