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Happy but sad: Outcomes at Morry's Camp

Camping Magazine, Jan, 2002 by M. Deborah Bialeschki, Teresa Younger, Karla Henderson, Dawn Ewing, Mary Casey, II

Happy and sad are two contrasting emotions, yet they often coexist within any occasion in our lives. When campers at MORRY'S CAMP were asked on a questionnaire at the end of the camping session to complete the sentence, "When camp ended, I felt..." a number of the campers responded with those two emotions. Several campers described concurrently the ideas of happy and sad, or sad but happy, or happy but sad. One young person said "good, but terrible." These responses lead us to ask questions about what happened at this camp that elicited those emotions.

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As part of our ongoing efforts to examine and document the outcomes of young peoples involvement at Morry's Camp, we have gathered information in a variety of formats over the past two years. We think it is important to enrich children's lives, and the messages we get from them and their parents or guardians give us indicators of how well we are doing. This article shares some of the ways we have gathered information.

Campers and camp professionals have described the values of camping for many years. Limited empirical literature exists, however, that documents these values and outcomes. A recent meta-analysis by Marsh (1999) provided a basis for examining aspects of camping outcomes. He found that camp had a positive influence on self in relatively short periods of time across all age groups, but particularly among younger campers. The other significant conclusion from Marsh's analyses was that camps that focused on enhancing self-constructs were more likely to affect them. Therefore, intentionality and deliberate programming done in camps often resulted in positive youth development.

Outcomes refer to the benefits or changes that occur for individuals or populations during or after participating in program activities. Outcomes may relate to behavior, skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, conditions, or other attributes. Camp professionals are interested in how these outcomes can be conceptualized, addressed during staff training, and implemented through camp programs so that these desirable benefits are not just left to chance.

Morry's Camp

Morry's Camp is unique in a number of ways. Morry Stein, former leader of the camping movement, had a dream of establishing a camp where children who might not otherwise get a chance to attend camp could come for several weeks in the summer. After his death, this camp started with children from New York City and surrounding communities who faced challenging life situations. The children are referred for consideration and are eligible when they are entering fifth grade. They must maintain appropriate performance in school, stay out of trouble, and have parental support for being involved with Morry's Camp. If they meet these criteria, the children attend camp for four weeks during the summer at no cost to the family. If they continue to meet these expectations during the school year, they are eligible to return to camp for up to four years.

The camp is based on a philosophy of self-empowerment, respect, cooperative living, and fun. The specific goals of the camp focus on building positive core values, increasing social skills, enhancing self-esteem, and building a sense of personal responsibility. Staff are trained in the camp philosophy, understand the camp objectives, and plan programs that result in the desired outcomes.

Morry's Camp is like many other summer youth camps. The children are in a natural outdoor setting, go swimming and boating, do nature activities, and have special evening campfire programs. The camp program, however, also includes aspects of school curricula. For example, grade appropriate learning objectives, particularly reading outcomes, are addressed in the camp program.

A unique aspect of this camp is the year-round focus of the camp program. Staff meet with the campers in their neighborhoods throughout the school year. These meetings provide ongoing contact with the children and their families in ways that continue to reinforce the outcomes achieved during the summer. The trust and bonds established during the summer are maintained and valued to such an extent that over the six years of the camps operation, the camp has over 80 percent of the campers meeting the camp requirements so they can return the next summer.

Sources of Data

Evaluation studies of any camp program are site and program specific. To the extent that another camp conducts its programs in similar ways, data cannot necessarily be generalized from one camp to another. These findings, however, may assist other camps in planning programs that can make a difference in young people's lives.

At Morry's Camp, campers are involved in ongoing formative evaluation activities where they describe various aspects of camp in addition to evaluating their overall experience at the end of the season. Some of these evaluations use the campers' own words and comments to open-ended questions or statements (i.e., qualitative data); other data are gathered from numeric scales and statistical information (i.e., quantitative data). For analysis purposes, we examined the end of the session quantitative and qualitative evaluations as well as some of the "journal entries" that the campers handed in during the session.

Happy but sad: Outcomes at Morry's Camp

Camping Magazine, Jan, 2002 by M. Deborah Bialeschki, Teresa Younger, Karla Henderson, Dawn Ewing, Mary Casey, II

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