Our camp summer is about to close but not before we have finished our Color War, Water Carnivals, Fireworks, Candlelight, Banquet and Cabin Parties.

We have played a lot, learned a lot, and grown a lot, and have perhaps taken for granted some perfect sunsets, blue-bird days, and friendships made rock solid by time shared together.

We have a few sayings at camp, but none exemplifies the perfect sentiment about camp friends: “to have a friend, be a friend”.

What a pleasure it is to see meaningful, relaxed, loyal, lasting in-person friendships being formed amongst our campers and counselors this summer. Face-Time will never replace Face to Face Time. This is an organic, fundamental truth we live at Birchmont every day.

The other saying we have at camp also comes into play this Color War week…

“Leadership is behavior.” Eleanor Roosevelt is the author of this quote, and her 3 words are still simple and true. Our camp community understands that being chosen for leadership positions through Color War is not just about a random selection, but about earning respect and recognition for behavior on and off the fields of play each day. There was tremendous support and enthusiasm shown at Color War team announcements after a fun and spirited Booth Carnival of our own making, with each bunk creating and running a booth in our circus-themed 4 teamed Color War and Carnival break out.

This past week we also held our annual Sailing Regatta on the first Wednesday in August to coincide with the St John’s Royal Regatta, North America’s oldest annual sporting event held each summer since 1816. We congratulate our sailors, Maven Flamhaft and Max Ferme took first place. Evan McVeigh took second place, and the team of Rafael Carlos, Kyle Kim and Michael Trokel placed third in the race.

We also congratulate Collin Kurtzman, our 2021 Checker Champion, and finalist Colden Friedman. And of course, we offer a huge congratulations to the Color War Lieutenants in each group (too many to list) and the 8 team Captains who will lead their camp teams this week: Jared Korn & Finn Byrne, William Sullivan & Ariana Koenig, Dylan Turkenkopf & Riley McKibben, Owen Banks and Rose Kobetz.

A big round of applause is also in order for all the talented and bold campers who performed in our second Talent and Variety Show of the season. Too many stars to list here, as were the winners of our annual Box Car Derby, both of these camp-wide, outdoor evening events brought much cheering and joy to the whole camp community.

We hope you have been enjoying these summer days too, because to be sure…

We will be having fun, till our camp days are done.

We leave you with one more saying until we see each other next summer…

“Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints” ~ Chief Seattle