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Happy February, everyone! This month is full of love and good feelings! We are so happy to share 28 awesome ways to spread kindness to/with your friends and family. You can download the printable version here.

https://youtu.be/2eDNVD26ZNw This year's summer theme, chosen to help guide campers to be trustworthy and dependable friends, cabin mates, and family members, is "Count on Me." Our first summer theme was in 2012 when we chose the theme of gratitude. We followed that theme with kindness (Cool 2B Kind), relationship building (Creating Connections), helpfulness (Give a Hand), grit (Growing Grit), positivity (The Energy Bus), a focus on friendship (Find-a-Friend), building up others (Filling Buckets), being our best selves (Be You ), appreciating our community (Better Together), and Choosing Kindness (2022). An important character trait of a good friend is being reliable, dependable, and trustworthy. We know that it's important that our campers develop these traits. This year at Gold Arrow Camp, we will be learning how to be people our friends can count on. We're thrilled to make our GAC community stronger by helping campers understand the importance of being a person their cabin mates, friends, and family can count on. There are many opportunities at camp to be dependable and reliable. "Counting on Me" means using our words and actions to show others they can count on us:

• Count on me to be a trustworthy friend
• Count on me to be a dependable cabin mate
• Count on me to be a responsible community member
• Count on me to challenge myself to grow at camp
• Count on me to show gratitude for others
• Count on ... Read more
  Tags: benefits of camp, camp, campers, count on me, GAC, gold arrow camp, summer camp, summer theme
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In all probability, the educationist of the year 2000 AD will look back upon us and wonder why we, the school people of 1938, failed to include the camp as an integral unit of our educational system. – The Kappan Magazine, the official magazine of Phi Delta Kappa – 1938 If you ever have the opportunity to visit us at camp, you’ll have the opportunity to sing the GAC Song. While many people love the “wadda-ing” that takes place in the chorus, my favorite part comes in the final verse. We sing, “I sure did learn much more here than I ever did at school.” My love of this line comes from my teaching before I came to work for Gold Arrow full time; I was a high school social science teacher for 14 years. It may seem odd that a teacher would love a line about learning more at camp than we did at school. But I do because camp and school operate symbiotically. While those of us in camping and education have known this anecdotally for many years, there is an increasing body of evidence that supports that belief with data. Some of that research has been supported by the American Camp Association, and I was privileged to hear one of the leaders in the field, Lance W. Ozier Ed.D. speak on this at a recent conference. He has written on the history of camps and schools (you can read it Read more

Summer seems so far away so we thought we would bring some GAC to you now with our virtual assemblies! If you're new to GAC or need a refresher, most days (unless on outpost), campers will attend Morning Assembly at our beautiful outdoor amphitheater. After breakfast, the entire camp community gathers for announcements, games, songs, and fun before heading off to their first activity for the day. For cabins who arrive early, an optional dance party on stage is always a camper favorite. From February through June, campers, parents, and staff are welcome to join us on the first Wednesday of each month at 4pm for a GAC Virtual Assembly. A reminder and link will be emailed to camp families prior to each assembly. We hope you'll join us!