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The Sherman Lake YMCA Camp project was one of my favorites, second only to our burn project. Having been a camp counselor for the previous two summers, I assumed this project would be pretty similar. WRONG! Since I worked at a day camp and during the project we were cabin counselors there were some pretty drastic differences. At a day camp you have a group of kids for about eight hours then you get to go home and eat your own food, sleep in your own bed, and hang out with your friends. As a cabin counselor you are off during most of the day, except meal times, then you take the kids after dinner. You eat camp food at every meal, which was pretty delicious for the most part, you sleep in a camp bed, and you hang out with your cabin. You have the campers during the most challenging times, meals  and bedtime. It is not a glamorous job. Another difference that was glaringly obvious was the difference between camp kids and school children. At Sherman Lake we had school groups that came for camp as part of the camp’s integrated education program. The behavioral differences between these children and the children that regularly attend camp was quite noticeable. Those that attend camp generally know what is expected of them and are typically good listeners and well behaved. This was not the case with the school kids, however. With a couple of exceptions, the groups for which I was cabin counselor were not great listeners and had difficulty following directions. This does not mean that I did not enjoy the project. As I mentioned earlier this was one of my favorites. Although the kids were not always the most cooperative, they were still a lot of fun to work with. Furthermore, the camp staff was incredibly friendly and supportive and the facilities were incredible. It also helped that the campus was gorgeous, especially when the fall colors began to show on the trees. My only regret is that the team isn’t staying for the full eight weeks. Next my team will travel to Pierre, South Dakota to help with clean up from the flood that occurred in May. We will mostly be mucking and gutting (removing debris and moldy drywall from basements) but we will have some other tasks including making phone calls to affected households to ensure that their needs are met, a similar task to what we did in Joplin. None of us are terribly excited about the project, the prospect of another round of six day work weeks is rather un-enticing, however, we will be providing a valuable service for the community and the impact will be immediately obvious. There will be three other teams in addition to ours, which should make the project a little more fun. It is unbelievable that this is our last round. We will be in Pierre for four weeks, then back to Vinton for two, then home!

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