This summer, I spent a lot of time at camp.
That is certainly not unusual in my work at the American Camp Association, New York and New Jersey, but this summer I had a particular goal. I wanted to visit as many recipients of the Scott Ralls Fund as I could, see the projects we helped fund in action, and better understand the impact these projects had on their camp communities.
I went into these visits believing deeply in the value of the Scott Ralls Fund. I came away from these visits understanding the impact in an entirely different way.
The Scott Ralls Fund was established to honor the legacy of Scott Ralls and his commitment to camp and the ACA, NY & NJ community. Through the Fund, nonprofit accredited member camps receive support for capital projects that strengthen their facilities, programs, and the experiences they provide. Scott was a champion of the camp experience, and the Fund carries that commitment forward by helping camps continue to grow and thrive.
Before joining ACA, NY & NJ, I spent years as a nonprofit camp director in New York City, so I know firsthand what additional funding can mean to a camp. I know what it is like to have a project that you know would improve your program, enhance your property, or create new opportunities for campers and staff, while also knowing that there are always competing needs for limited resources.
So, when I read an application for a new program space, improvements to a challenge course, new docks, facility renovations, or infrastructure upgrades, I understand why those projects matter.
What I learned this summer is that understanding them on paper is nothing like seeing them in action.
Over the course of the summer, I had the privilege of visiting 11 camps that received funding from the Scott Ralls Fund: Happiness is Camping, Trail Blazers, North Shore Holiday House, Princeton-Blairstown Center, Rising Treetops at Oakhurst, Camp Herrlich, Kiddie Keep Well Camp, Camp Ma-He-Tu, Westchester Summer Day, Camp Lou Henry Hoover, and Camp Reece.
At nearly every stop, I was able to see a completed Scott Ralls Fund project being used by the people it was created to serve.
I watched campers and staff engaging in these spaces. I heard from camp directors about how a project had changed a program area and, in some cases, created opportunities to rethink other parts of their property. I saw before-and-after pictures. I heard about strategic plans and what comes next. Most importantly, I witnessed firsthand the joy, passion, and incredible ability of the campers and staff who now benefit from these projects.
There were challenge course elements filled with campers pushing themselves to try something new. There were new docks sitting on a magnificent lake, opening the waterfront to even more activity. There were improvements to buildings and program spaces that made them safer, more comfortable, and more useful. I learned how improvements in one area of camp could create opportunities elsewhere, allowing existing spaces to be repurposed, programs to expand, and camps to think differently about what might be possible across their property.
Each project was different. Each camp was different. But the feeling I encountered was remarkably consistent.
There was joy. There was pride. There was excitement about what had been accomplished and, maybe even more importantly, what could come next.
It reminded me that the physical landscape of a camp is part of the tapestry of the camp experience. A dock is not simply a dock when it is the place where a camper learns to paddle a canoe for the first time. A challenge course is more than an activity when it gives a young person the opportunity to take a risk, trust someone else, and discover what they are capable of. A renovated building is more than a capital improvement when it allows a camp to imagine an entirely new use for a space.
This is what I came to understand more fully this summer.
We don’t just fund projects through the Scott Ralls Fund. We invest in the future success of camp programs.
We invest in what those projects make possible.
We invest in nonprofit camps that are deeply committed to the children, families, staff, and communities they serve. We invest in organizations that are constantly looking at their programs and properties and asking how they can do more, serve better, and create an even stronger camp experience.
And, in doing so, we deepen our partnership with them.
Membership and accreditation connect these camps to ACA, NY & NJ, and to our broader camp community. The Scott Ralls Fund gives us another meaningful way to be a partner in their success. It allows us to say that we believe in the work they are doing and that we want to be a part of what comes next.
One of my final visits of the summer was different from the others. Camp Reece is one of our newest recipients, so there was not yet a completed project for me to see. Instead, I saw the vision.
Camp Reece plans to build a dedicated recreation building as part of a larger recreational quad, providing indoor program space that will be particularly important for its campers with special needs when weather or other circumstances make outdoor programming difficult.
After a summer of seeing what previous Scott Ralls Fund projects had become, there was something incredibly fitting about standing at a camp and imagining what this newest project will become.
A year from now, there will be something there that is not there today.
Campers will use it. Staff will build programming around it. The camp will continue to grow around it. And, eventually, it will simply become part of the fabric of Camp Reece, just as the projects I visited this summer have become part of their respective communities.
That possibility is what excites me most about the future of the Scott Ralls Fund.
These visits reminded me why I became a camp professional and why, so many years later, I remain incredibly proud to be one. The work happening at camps throughout our region matters. The people doing it are thoughtful, resourceful, passionate, and extraordinarily committed to creating experiences where campers of all ages and abilities can learn, grow, belong, and experience joy.
I left every visit wanting to find more ways to help.
That is also why I hope we can continue to grow the Scott Ralls Fund.
There are more camps with ideas sitting in strategic plans. More projects waiting for the resources that will make them possible. More spaces that can be transformed. More campers who will benefit from investments whose true impact we may not fully understand until years after they are made.
Growing the Scott Ralls Fund means we can say yes to more of those possibilities.
If you believe, as I do, in the power of camp and in the organizations that make these experiences possible, I hope you will consider making a gift to the Scott Ralls Fund. Together, we can continue investing in our camps, in their future, and in all that they make possible for the communities they serve.
I believed in the Scott Ralls Fund before this summer.
Now, I have seen what it can do.
