"You're My Favorite Counselor".

On the shores of Corey Lake, where children's laughter frequently echoes throughout the surrounding beaches, sits Camp Eberhart, a place more familiar and comforting to me than anything else I have ever known. To understand who I am, you must consider the camp where I have learned many life skills and where I have grown up. Camp has made me the person I am today through the people I have encountered, the friendships I have made, and the experiences I have had.

I started off at Eberhart as a timid ten-year-old. My first night there I, like many campers, missed by parents and became homesick. My counselors comforted me. They showed me that I was safe and that camp was a place to meet new people and enjoy my time away from home. My first year, I was looking simply to have a good time, but as the summers went by, camp became more to me. I looked up to my counselors in awe, admiring their ability to take an interest in every camper they met. To be quite honest, I came back to camp because of them. The way they held my hand, the way they taught me a new song while walking from one place to another, the way they made me feel so significant changed the way I felt about myself.

As I got older, each summer at camp added more to who I am, and eventually, I realized the reason why camp pulled me back year after year. I was working toward a goal, one that at first I hadn't really thought about. When I was old enough, I would be a counselor and care for campers, just as they had cared for me.

Although it seemed to take forever, my time had finally come. My summer as a counselor-in-training was spent with fifteen other kids, just like me, working toward a similar goal. We learned how to work in a group and the fundamentals of being a camp counselor. But that's not all we achieved that summer. We also learned about forming connections with those with whom we worked. In those five weeks, I made bonds with people that I will have for the rest of my life. I went home that summer and waited in anticipation until the next summer approached.

My first summer on staff I gave it all I had, but I found that the transition would not be easy. To be a true counselor meant to trade in my life as a carefree camper. I became responsible for these kids; their lives were in my hands, and they depended on me. I realized, though, what an amazing opportunity I had. I was able to watch my campers grow, learn, and play, as I once did. I did what I knew best, and eventually, I got into the swing of things. I went in knowing what I had witnessed over the years and the skills I had learned as a CIT; I left with the experience of doing it firsthand. There were so many moments when I was reminded of why I wanted to be there, of what I wanted to accomplish.

Toward the end of the summer when we were waiting to go to a campfire, a little girl named Maggie plopped into my lap. She had just finished a Popsicle, and with her bright red lips, she gave me the biggest grin I had ever seen on a face so small. Maggie leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Catie, you're my favorite counselor." I looked into her wide eyes and saw that she was telling me the absolute truth. At that moment, I felt so happy about what I had done that summer and I knew I was doing my job right.

Looking back on the summer, I remember it with a deep sense of accomplishment. I remember the lifelong friends I made, both counselors and campers. I remember the campers smiling up at me with that certain look of innocence in their eyes that made me feel so important. I remember the person I was at the beginning of the summer, and I realize the person that I became. I was independent, responsible, and the best friend that I could be. Through the campers, I learned to be a counselor.

A summer away from home, family, and friends showed me what it was to be independent. The responsibility I agreed to take on was more than I had ever experienced, but nothing was more gratifying than the way I felt when it was over. In addition to teaching, mothering, and just being a friend to twenty wild eight-year-old girls for ten weeks, I learned about taking care of other people and how they, in turn, took care of me. I learned more about life in that summer than ever before.

Catherine E. Gillespie was a counselor at YMCA Camp Eberhart in Three Rivers, Michigan.

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