Session 1 – Day 1: Summer ’25 is off and running!
The energy is palpable…Our campers are home!!! The staff is running on high adrenaline. I wish I could bottle it. The veterans have a gleam in their eye and comfort in their stride. Our new campers are wide eyed and eager, sure a little nervous, but the awesomely trained staff is doing such a great job, calming those nerves and turning them into anticipation and excitement.
Welcome to summer 2025!!!
There’s about 10 of us on the year-round team and we work all year to plan for this day. The kick off, the launch…It’s what we wait for, it’s what we strive for, It’s what we hunger for! I used to see parents post on social media (I don’t go on social media anymore but I remember this) posting pictures of their kids home from camp and saying things like “my heart is full”, well… our hearts are full! We are so excited to spend our summer or this next week or next two weeks with your kid. Showing them fun, frolic, Jewish pride and a love for Israel and understanding of how it’s in our hearts. Tonight we had three of our Israeli staff (all IDF naval officers) run the flag circle, and we introduced to our campers what standing at attention and honoring flags meant. It was really cool to see these young kids standing at attention watching the Israeli flag come down for the day and watching three grown men with a clear love in their hearts and devotion to that flag. You could see the pride floating from them into our campers heart. It was a great kick off to 2025.
For those of you new the Ted talk, I put this out most every night (not on Shabbat of course), sometimes it’s very late at night, and I promise to speak from my heart to never use ChatGPT and you’ll be able to tell because there will be mispellings (see what I did there) and bad grammar. What you’re getting is your kids experience through my eyes, a former camper parent and staff (from back when the horses pulled the boats) a proud Jew and ardent Zionist who discovered both here at Macheneh Herzl… top five love of my life.
That’s your brief wrapup of day 1 (we haven’t done much yet), Chugim (activities) start tomorrow! Thank you for sending your kid to Herzl Camp. All is safe and well and it’s going to be an AWESOME summer ‘25.
לילה טוב
Tommy