Sunday is over, the staff is assembled, and we’re all set for another year of Run Home Camp. It amazes me how new people fit so seamlessly into camp; even after just one day with the staff, everyone feels like they belong. We have a great mix of returning coaches and new volunteers this year, and we’re all so excited to meet the boys of 2018.
Twelve of these nine- to twelve-year-olds are returners, so I’m sure they’re excited to come back and experience the best week of summer all over again. Many of them will be reunited with the same coach they had last year. As for the other eight boys, I’m thinking they’re kind of excited, kind of nervous. Little do they know, this week is going to be unlike anything they have ever experienced.
Even though they don’t arrive until tomorrow morning, camp is already so focused on the twenty kids coming this year. Every part of training today was focused on the boys in some way. Some coaches were excited to hear that their campers were coming back, while others heard the names of their boys for the first time. Each of the ten coaches has two campers assigned to them so they can get tons of attention and encouragement throughout the week. The coaches continued the tradition of making posters with their boys’ names on them to cheer with on the kids’ arrival.
Of course, focusing on the campers also means that we learned about some of the situations these boys have been in. Run Home Camps is for boys who are abused, neglected, or underprivileged, so these kids’ backgrounds are not pretty. They have been through some crazy stuff at a very young age. As we talked about today and the boys show us every year, though, they are just kids. They may be exposed to abnormal, negative situations, but they’re still normal kids. They just don’t have a safe place where they can be.
Run Home Camps is that place for a week. These boys get to simply come and play baseball. They get to be kids and have fun and be appreciated and encouraged maybe for the first time in their lives. Like one of our managers said today, we never know what moment will be a turning point for these boys. All we can do is keep loving and encouraging them and watch as they transform from Monday to Friday.
