By Aaron Selkow, Owner/Director
Seen
Yesterday was my 56th birthday.
When you’ve spent as much of your life at camp as I have, birthdays begin to feel a little different. By my count, I’ve now celebrated 51 of them at summer camp. It’s hard to imagine another place I’d rather be. There is something wonderfully special about spending your birthday surrounded by children who are laughing, counselors who are pouring themselves into making camp magical, and colleagues who have become part of our extended family. Throughout the day, I wore the same birthday shirt that every camper and staff member wears on their birthday. Hundreds of campers wished me a happy birthday as I walked around camp. There were songs, hugs, pictures, an incredible birthday cake decorated in Philadelphia 76ers colors, and even birthday cake for the entire camp at lunch. By any measure, it was a birthday I’ll never forget.
But none of that is what I’ve been thinking about today.
Last night, during our Friday night Community Campfire, I was invited on stage to receive a Community Service Award. It caught me completely by surprise. Over the years, I’ve quietly received a few nominations from campers, but they’ve always been handed to me privately. This time, because it was my birthday, one of our campers wrote something so thoughtful that our leadership team chose to read it in front of the entire camp. Standing there, I honestly wasn’t thinking very much about myself. Instead, I found myself thinking about what those awards have come to represent at Chestnut Lake.
Community Service Awards have become one of my favorite traditions, not because of the handful of names that are read aloud each Friday night, but because of the hundreds of names that aren’t. Every week, campers and staff members take a few quiet moments to recognize someone who made a difference in their lives. Sometimes it’s a counselor who offers encouragement when it’s needed most. Sometimes it’s a bunkmate who quietly welcomes someone new. Sometimes it’s a camper who demonstrates kindness when nobody else notices, or a staff member who simply makes another person’s day a little brighter. They write those nominations in their own handwriting, explaining why that person mattered to them. Our campus leaders select a handful to be shared publicly each week, but every single nomination is delivered to the person for whom it was written.
Think about that for a moment.
Even if your name is never read in front of the camp, someone still took the time to notice you. They saw something in you that mattered enough to sit down, think about it carefully, and put it into words. They wanted you to know that your kindness, leadership, encouragement, friendship, or compassion made a difference. In a world where so many young people wonder if they are truly seen, I can’t think of many more meaningful gifts than that.
As camp directors, Ann and I spend a great deal of time discussing some of the Chestnut Lake values, such as Character. Leadership. Confidence. We hope those words become more than posters on a wall or beads on a bracelet. We hope they become part of the way our campers think about themselves and about each other. The Community Service Awards have become one of the clearest expressions of those values because they don’t celebrate talent or popularity. They celebrate humanity. They remind us that the most important people in a community are often the ones who quietly make everyone else’s experience better. As I stood on that stage last night, I shared something with the campers that I have continued thinking about ever since.
If I can receive a Community Service Award, then every single person at camp can receive one. I don’t mean that modestly. I mean it sincerely.
The people making the biggest difference in camp aren’t usually the ones standing on stage. They’re the counselor who notices the camper who seems a little quieter than usual. They’re the division leader who spends an extra ten minutes helping a homesick child settle into bed. They’re the friend who scoots over on a bench at the picnic table in the Grove to make room for someone who looks like they need a place to sit. They’re the Varsity camper who takes a younger child under their wing. They’re the maintenance staff member who quietly fixes something before anyone knows it was broken, the nurse who comforts a frightened camper, the specialty counselor who celebrates a child for trying something difficult instead of simply succeeding. Those people make our camp what it is.
One of the things that has struck me most during this first week has been how often I’ve seen those moments unfold. I’ve seen them in our new garden program, where campers eagerly harvested food that, until recently, was just tiny seeds in the ground. I’ve seen them on the pickleball courts, where a group of campers at our first-ever Pickleball Specialty Camp yesterday refused to let the heat diminish their enthusiasm for a sport they are quickly falling in love with. I’ve seen them during evening programs, on athletic fields, in bunks, and simply walking from one activity to the next. The headlines of camp are often found in big events and exciting traditions, but the heart of camp has always lived in the small interactions between people who choose, over and over again, to make someone else’s day better. Perhaps that’s why the Community Service Awards mean so much to me.
They remind us to pay attention. They remind us that kindness is rarely loud. They remind us that leadership is often quiet. Most importantly, they remind us that every child deserves to feel seen.
This year we’ve decided to do something new. In the coming days, if your child received a Community Service nomination this week (whether it was read aloud at the Campfire or handed to them after the program ended), we’ll email it home for you to read. Long after the summer ends, I suspect those handwritten notes will become some of the most meaningful souvenirs they bring home from camp. As for me, I’ll carefully tuck my own nomination away with a handful of others I’ve received over the years. Not because I think I earned special recognition, but because every once in a while it’s nice to be reminded that someone noticed.
The truth is, that’s something all of us need from time to time. Whether we’re fifty-six years old or ten. Whether we’re the camp director or a first-year camper. We all want to know that somebody saw the best in us.