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Elizabeth Martinet

Elizabeth's Story

If you were to tell someone one thing about Outpost, it would be...
...that it can only be experienced in person. Every time I try to put into words exactly what I do to my roommates, best friends, and even my dad it sounds completely ridiculous. But when you come to camp and get immersed into any average day it overcomes you. Instantly you are sucked into this magical place where you can be exactly who you want to be, no matter what age or title you hold at camp. Every single person can go out into the preserve, walk into a fort, and find leaf people. Outpost is more than a day camp; it is an experience. There is no way to truly understand it until you have walked in a camper's, junior or senior counselor's, or director's shoes.

Elizabeth with her Senior Outpost campers

My most memorable group was...
...a group of my youngest senior outpost campers. Their patience and constant desire to try and be friends with one particularly challenging camper in their group greatly impressed me. This was a group of twelve eleven year-olds who at school would have never given her the time of day. At camp, however, they pushed away their anger and resentment towards her behavior and tried time and time again to be her friend. So many times I could see the boys in this group getting more and more frustrated. I remember seeing the boys shows physical signs of frustration, clenching their fist and jaws, and then slowly releasing them without any kind of encouragement from myself or their senior counselor. Eventually at the end of the three weeks my most challenging camper came up to me and told me she had new friends. I couldn't help but smile and hold back tears. I think my favorite part of that group was not anything I did, but the patience and diligence of that group, working hard to make her a part of the group.

I like, correction, LOVE, Senior Outpost because...
...of its ability to foster a safe place for preadolescents. I remember being 11-14 and feeling completely awkward and uncomfortable in my own skin. Outpost is so different. For three weeks campers have the potential to make new friends and be creative and spontaneous without fear of being punished or put down. I absolutely love the ability every Senior Outpost camper has to not only stretch their physical limits with rock climbing, high ropes, and the other challenging physical experiences we do, but they also push their emotional boundaries. They have to learn how to talk to their peers and solve problems without the "help" of adults. I love that when a camper is going over the rappel and I see that moment of fear in her eyes she understands that she is in complete control of her life and it scares her. But even in that moment of fear it is nothing like the triumph of victory when she reaches the bottom. It's something I can always look at and know that each camper learned something amazing about themselves in that small moment.

The moment at Outpost that had the biggest impact on me was...
...In my first year as a director. I worked so hard that summer to make sure everything was "perfect". At the end of the first session Stuart received an email from a parent and handed it over to me. I thought it had to be a complaint that something was wrong and their teen didn't have fun. When I read the email I cried and to this day I remember everything she had written.

This mother told an amazing story of her 14-year-old boy who barely spoke to her throughout the school year. She signed him up for camp on a whim. After the first day he didn't say much but wanted to go to the grocery store to buy candy for his new friends, so they did that. She then went on to tell Stuart that almost every day after camp they would go to the grocery store to buy candy and talk about everything.

On the last day of camp when she picked him up she noticed he was sad and she asked him what was wrong. He said that he was sad because he wouldn't get to see his friends tomorrow. Then she realized that this meant there was no need for them to go to the store to get candy and she got sad. He then turned and said to her "Mom can we go to the store anyway, I like it".

She wrote that it took all of her energy to not cry on the way to the store. After reading her email and her eternal thanks to our staff I realized that what I do, and what camp does, is so much bigger than three weeks of games, songs, and adventures. This mother showed me how much good was happening at camp and that it could change a life. I doubt she knows how much her story affected me, but her son and so many more of my campers are the reasons I work every summer and put so much effort into every day.