April 12, 2021
A letter to yourself; A Camp Aranzazu Staff Tradition
Written by: Amelia Haslam Smith, Camp Director
Each May (excluding this past one, darn it!) Camp Aranzazu gets to welcome our team of Activity Leaders made up of some truly incredible young people to camp, and we get to teach them as much as we can about our camp history, activity facilitation, emergency procedures, types of camper populations we serve, and the culture of Camp Aranzazu in a three week training session. And then, it’s go time – campers arrive and we don’t slow down until the summer season closes in early August.
While the summer weeks always fly by, there is something really big going on in our staff. They are changing, learning, and growing with every minute they move forward. It’s something that happens so fast, and so subtly, we wanted to draw some attention to what was happening and how COOL it is.
We started this tradition in 2014 and plan to keep it for a long time. At the end of staff training, and before campers arrive, we close our training session with a ceremony to recognize how much our staff has accomplished and to get them in the mindset for what comes next, which is ultimately the best part, our campers! At this ceremony, we give each staff member a blank card and they are prompted to write a letter to themselves to read at the end of summer. This could be a letter of encouragement, a promise they want to keep, or advice they hope to share with the version of themselves that will read this at the end of the season. We ask them to seal the letter and we hold onto them until our closing ceremony on the last day of camp.
I love this tradition. There is something incredibly special about revisiting a moment in time from your own point of view. It’s powerful to see how much our staff grow in a summer, and how they take an experience like camp and allow it to mold their perspectives and light fires of advocacy in them. I am always so impressed with the excitement and grace I see in them taking on a whole new season and letting it do its work. They encourage me to be better, to stay malleable, and to soak it all up. Having these letters as little immortal pieces of your own mindset before a big change is something I cherish each year (we write them too!) and have found myself rereading them often and still learning from all the different versions of me. Amongst many other things, I love this about camp - that there is intentionality and investment in all of our people - not just the campers.
So I encourage you, if you find yourself curious about a letter to the future you - to write one! Whether it’s at the start of a whole new adventure, season of life, year, or hour. Take a second, think about what you would want to say to yourself in the future and then seal it up and revisit it when the time is right – and relish in how thoughtful and intentional you were with yourself!
