Heartland...Written by Alumni Staffer, Ben Gross

As summer approaches, it is often difficult to put into words the impact camp can have on staff.  Following summer 2008,  Ben Gross shared the impact camp had had on his life...

27 August 2008

My Heartland

            As the sun sets on a Carolina lake, I take a moment to examine my position. Children laugh and joke, begging for one more story or a few more minutes with their friends. I find myself surrounded by my closest friends, old and new, who all share the same mission of growing, teaching, and touching lives. I am a fortunate person, because I have a heartland. 

            For the past nine years of my life, I have had the privilege of attending YMCA Camp Thunderbird at Lake Wylie, South Carolina; I was a camper for seven years and a counselor for two. I did most of my growing under the heavy Carolina air; days were spent in the lake or at the pool, and nights were filled with the chirp of crickets and the swanky steel styling of an acoustic guitar. Camp is beautiful, an oasis of peace and nature among an ever-pressing onslaught of development. I will never forget the sight of a Lake Wylie sunset or the sound of the waves lapping against the shores, but it is the people, the relationships, which store the magic of summer in the deepest corners of my soul.  The land is near to my heart, but the people are the heart of the land. 

            Camp is a place where spirits grow, friendships form, and youth of all walks of life realize the deepest of love. Camp is home. Where else in the world can a seventeen-year-old kid be mistakenly called “dad” by his eight-year-old camper? Where else is it acceptable, even encouraged, to be as messy, dirty, loud, and immature as possible? Where else is it possible to understand the deepest meanings of dependence, acceptance, and love just by staring hard enough into someone’s eyes? 

            I may not be from South Carolina, but my heartland is the place that is dearest to me. I once consoled a fellow counselor about departing from this place. She was new to the camp experience, and devastated that she had to leave the friends, the people, and the love that she had just come to accept. She was afraid of the emptiness, the void it would leave in her life. I explained it simply: “this place can never leave you; you’ll never be empty again.” My heartland will never leave me.  Carolina has cast a spell on me that cannot be broken.