Part of the fun of working year round at camp is all the different types of jobs we get to do throughout the year. And so it was that last week I found myself helping to plant trees. It ended up being the best thing I did all week and here are the three reasons why:

1) We worked together. 

Every member of our full time team has a unique job and responsibility. We’re a small team and divide and conquer a lot. Occasionally, however, a job arrives that is so big it takes all of us. Planing 27 trees and over 40 bushes and shrubs was one of those jobs and so our team got the chance to tackle the task together. Being together is the best part of camp. Times spent with friends in the cabin or at an activity become the memories that last a lifetime. Planting and digging our team experienced a beautiful reminder of what that community living is like each summer

2) I got dirty. 

There’s nothing like being outside and working with your hands. We talk in the summer about the importance of unplugging from technology, the need to run outside, to explore, to get muddy. Our campers get to enjoy that freedom every day and getting to taste a bit of that same ruggedness and messiness shaping the dirt around a root ball or shoveling mulch into place was sweet. 

3) I worked for something that’s going to outlive me. 

On average a healthy oak tree will live several hundred years. The trees we planted are already beautiful and I know our campers will enjoy seeing them this summer, but the reality is that it will probably be the generation after the next generation that gets to see their potential fully realized. There is something humbling and yet profound about planting something that you know will outlive you. In big and small ways we see this happen every summer. An instructor teaches a camper his roll in a kayak, knowing it will be several years before that camper has mastered our local rivers. A cabin counselor empathizes with a junior camper who is missing home, knowing very well that a decade from now that camper will be the one who is leading and encouraging first time campers. Character traits like courage, humility, empathy and grit are taught and championed each day at Timberlake. And while the values of servant leadership bear immediate fruit, we know that the full impact of that character development won’t be realized until the boys in our care each summer grow into young men, into husbands, into fathers and into leaders in their communities. 

And even though the trees we planted may not look like much today, we know the real payoff is down the road, and it makes the planting that much more exciting. We can’t wait to see everybody back at camp this summer. Some new trees, some new friends, some new lessons and some new adventures will be waiting for you!

Great Camping, 

John