"GAC"s of Kindness

Our Vision: Gold Arrow Camp is a supportive community where lives are enriched through relationships and experiences.

         At Gold Arrow Camp, we focus on being a community that is inclusive and warm.  Our campers are expected to be respectful and kind to one another and to our staff.   “Put downs” and other negative comments are not allowed.  During training week, counselors learned about creating warm, fun, and welcoming environments in their cabin groups.  Our goal is for campers to use positive language with each other.  At their first cabin campfires, campers discussed their cabin’s code of conduct and agreed on how they are going to live with and treat each other to make sure that everyone has a positive experience at Camp.

Each session, we have a theme that is introduced at Camper Orientation and focused on throughout the session.   Our Session 1 theme is “GACs” of Kindness. Counselors will discuss ideas with campers and encourage them to think more about kindness and incorporate kindness in their daily routine.  Acts of kindness will be recognized and praised by counselors, announced at our daily Morning Assemblies, posted on our “Kindness” board, and talked about throughout the session.

Helping others makes people happy. It feels good to share, to give, and to be kind to others.  Sometimes in secret, and sometimes in front of others, we’ll do nice things for our fellow campers and counselors this session.  Leaving notes, doing a chore for them, making a friendship bracelet at arts and crafts, and listening intently to their stories, will all be acts of kindness that will make others happy and, in turn, make us happy, too!

One of the great things about Gold Arrow Camp is that so many people are happy when they’re here.   Some campers even describe GAC as their “happiest place on earth.”  We hope by focusing on kindness this session our campers will come home happier because of their new kindness habit!