By Aaron Selkow, Owner/Director
Over the past several weeks, I have spoken with parents who are trying to solve a problem they never expected to have. Their children are still at camp. They are living with friends, playing games, singing songs, competing in traditions, and falling asleep each night in a place they believe will be waiting for them next summer. Meanwhile, their parents are at home making phone calls, scheduling tours, joining Zoom meetings, comparing programs, and trying to figure out where their children might go next. Some of these families have children who have been together for years. I have spoken with parents who are hoping to keep an entire group of fourteen campers together in one cabin at a new camp.
I understand why. These are not simply fourteen children on a list. They are friendships, shared histories, inside jokes, traditions, loyalties, and years of memories. When a camp changes or closes, parents naturally want to preserve as much of that world as they can.
At Chestnut Lake, we would not ordinarily keep fourteen children together in the same cabin, even if they had all been with us for years. We certainly would not promise to take fourteen new campers from somewhere else and place them together as one intact group. That is not because we do not care about their relationships. It is because part of the work of camp is helping children become part of something larger. We want them to hold onto the friendships they already have while also meeting new people, stretching themselves, and finding their place within a broader community.
Still, I understand the request. I understand the parent who is trying to save something for a child who does not even know yet that it may be lost.
Many of the families reaching out to us are thoughtful, kind, and asking excellent questions. Some of them actually looked at Chestnut Lake several years ago before choosing another camp. They made a good decision at the time. Their children found a place they loved. The fact that they are calling us now does not mean they chose incorrectly. It means circumstances changed. These conversations have reinforced something I have believed for a long time.
There is probably not only one great camp for every child. There may be two or three. There may be many. Parents often feel enormous pressure to identify the one perfect place. They tour camps, study websites, call references and talk to referral agents, compare facilities, ask about programs, and wonder whether a single decision will determine everything that follows. But that is not really how camp works. You do not have to find the only great camp for your child. You have to find one of the great camps. Once your child is in a good place, run by good people, with thoughtful staff and a healthy culture, camp begins to do most of the work. Your child meets other children. They try things they would not try at home. They become more independent. They laugh. They struggle. They recover. They find people who know them in a new way.
Of course, I believe Chestnut Lake is the greatest camp on earth. At the very least, that is what we aspire to be. We want to be exceptional. We want to be distinctive. We want families to feel there is something here that cannot be duplicated anywhere else. But I am also objective enough to know that there cannot be only one place where a child can thrive. There is not only one great college. There is not only one meaningful career or one company where a person can succeed. Perhaps there is not even only one possible soulmate in the world.
What matters is finding the place, the work, or the person that becomes yours. That is what happens with camp. A child arrives at one of many places that could have been wonderful, and over time it becomes the only place that matters to them. That is why this moment is so difficult.
The children who may need a new camp next summer are not arriving as blank slates. They are arriving with expectations, memories, loyalties, and grief. They may walk into a beautiful camp filled with kind people and immediately compare everything to what they left behind. The dining hall will sound different. The songs will be unfamiliar. The traditions may feel strange. The cabins will not smell the same.
Could the new camp become just as meaningful? Of course. It could even become better. But it will be different. And for children, as for adults, different does not always feel exciting. Often, different simply feels wrong. Most of us do not love change, especially when we did not choose it. It takes maturity, perspective, and trust to imagine that something unfamiliar might eventually become beloved. That is part of what these families are facing.
At the same time, I have been having another kind of conversation. I have spoken with our current parents on Visiting Day. I spoke with families who brought their children for the beginning of Second Session, or parents who have emailed or called us. I spoke with parents who picked up their children from Discovery Camp yesterday. Their concern is different. They want to know how we are going to make sure Chestnut Lake does not change. They have heard about camps closing and families searching for new places. They see the calls, tours, and sudden interest. Some worry that an influx of new families could overwhelm the camp they love. They are concerned that the culture could change, that cabins could become crowded, or that people arriving from somewhere else could somehow take over. I understand that concern, too.
Families do not only want access to a place. They want to protect what made the place special in the first place. This was not a concern I remember from my own years as a camper. It was not even something I thought much about while running camps in the 1990s or the early 2000s. We are living in a different era now. Longstanding camps are facing uncertainty. Families can receive news instantly. Rumors move quickly. Enrollment decisions happen earlier. Parents feel pressure to protect a place before they fully understand whether it is at risk. There is something unsettling about all of it.
Ann and I feel the responsibility of this moment deeply. We care about the families who are searching for a new home. We do not want to turn away wonderful people whose children might thrive here. But we are even more committed to the families who already call Chestnut Lake home. Growth cannot come at the expense of identity. New families cannot be welcomed in a way that crowds out current families or changes the essential character of the camp. We have to be thoughtful about who joins us, how many campers we enroll, how children are placed, and how we preserve the culture that already exists. A camp is not strengthened simply by becoming larger. It is strengthened by becoming more fully itself.
That means staying true to our values. It means protecting the relationships, traditions, expectations, and sense of community that make Chestnut Lake what it is. It means remembering that every new family is not joining an empty institution. They are entering a living community with a history, a personality, and people who already love it deeply. The best outcome is not for a new group to recreate its old camp here. The best outcome is for those children to hold onto the friendships and memories they already have while gradually becoming part of something new. That process will take patience. It will require current families to remain open and generous. It will require new families to understand that they are not replacing one camp with an exact copy of another. And it will require us to lead carefully, honestly, and with a clear understanding of what must never be lost.
Camps are supposed to be forever places. They are supposed to endure across generations. They are supposed to be the places where a child returns year after year until one day that child becomes a parent and tells stories about the lake, the cabin, the counselor, and the summer that changed everything. But forever places do not remain meaningful by refusing to change at all. They remain meaningful by knowing what can change and what cannot. Facilities will improve. Programs will evolve. New families will arrive. Children will grow up. Leadership will eventually pass from one generation to another. But the soul of the place must remain recognizable. That is our commitment.
We will welcome new people with warmth. We will protect the families who are already here. We will grow carefully. And we will continue trying every day to make Chestnut Lake not only a place children love now, but a place they can trust will still feel like home when they return. As close to forever as possible.