The Matawa Staff

What a weekend! Five great families from the Great Lakes Hemophilia Foundation just had a fantastic time at Matawa this past weekend. We’ve held their first annual Great Lakes Hemophilia Foundation Family Camp. All families had the opportunity to participate in a plethora of activities from Slingshots to a Crazy Wagon Ride to building Family Shelters out in the woods (they did an excellent job…must be the instructor!) and much much more! They also got immersed into our wacky campfires where they found out that ZZ and Jeremy were suckers, that Dr. Matawa doesn’t have even a Bachelors Degree, and that Tarzan has a tan! We had an amazing time with the families and we hope to see our new friends soon! Thanks for the Amazing weekend GLHF.

Please join me in welcoming Andrew Gappa to the YMCA Camp Matawa team! Andrew has recently started as Program Director in charge of Outdoor Education and Groups & Conferences. Although this is a new position for him, he is no stranger to Matawa. He just completed his 10th summer at camp and was our Community Groups Coordinator for the last full year. He brings a wealth of knowledge about camp and working with children with special needs. He is a certified Special Education teacher! We are so excited to have him on our team!

Feel free to contact Andrew (agappa@ymcamke.org) to welcome him or for information about retreats, conferences or school outings at Camp Matawa.

As many of you know, I became the Matawa Camp Operations Director in May and a couple of weeks ago my family and I moved off camp to make way for Andrew! Although my days of 24/7 coverage at camp are ending, I am looking forward to continuing to provide leadership to our Matawa staff team and increasing my involvement with our camp community and board.

Thank You!
Wendy Mieske

Tonight’s Agenda:

Capture the Flag

Tomorrow:

Mauthe Lake Camp-out…Whoot Whoot

In the Spirit of Matawa,

Trekker Village

This is Dani from Colombia; I worked here for 3 summers (2008, 2009, 2010). Currently I work in the Human Resources Department at the YMCA of the Rockies in Colorado, precisely in Estes Park.

Since my return to Colombia, knowing I wasn’t going to come back to work here, I had thought about coming back for a week, to visit my old friends and spend a week at this special place. When I head to Colorado I knew what I wouldn’t be heading back down Youth Camp Road for a while and I thought about all the good things we did during the past 3 summers to make kids laugh, the jokes and the friendships I made here and how I am a better person for my time at Matawa.

When I decided to fly to WI, I was very excited all the highways and cities I saw for the past 3 years made my heart beat faster and faster and when we parked at the back of the JBL and all my “Family” came out to say hi to me, made me so happy and special to be back to that place where memories and special moments will last forever. 10.000 miles from the town I belong…I felt at home…one more time.

It is always good to see your family here, working hard to change kids lives, I miss them everyday, but it is wonderful to see how new people is working here with the same purpose, it is great to see them joining this family for a good reason and keep the spirit of Matawa alive. I say family because that is the way I feel and they make me feel since I got here in 2008 for the first time. Be sure all of them are doing a fantastic job to make a difference in the life of all the kids who come to camp to spend 1, 2 or more weeks of their summer.

Also seeing the campers and realize that they miss you too, that is the most rewarding thing you can feel when you are not working here anymore, feel that they remember you, means you tried to do a good job for them. That made me so happy! I am so thankful for being part of this family and I am proud to be a Matawa Alumni.

I have to go back to Colorado this Monday (Yeah, Annie, do not forget to give me a ride jajaja) but Matawa will always have a piece of my heart and I will be coming back here forever or when God give me the chance to do that. I will go with the good feeling to shared one week with my family and have had an amazing time here. I have to go back to work with the staff at the YMCA of the Rockies but I can’t wait to come back again soon. THAT’S WHAT’S UP.

In the Spirit of Matawa, kiss the buffalo for me,

Dani Ramirez

PS: ‘One Hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, what sort of house I lived in, or what kind of car I drove; but the World may be different because I was important in the life of a child’

            It has been an absolutely awesome four weeks here at Camp Matawa.  We have done many crazy and exciting things.  Some of the fun includes doing different challenges on the low ropes course here at Matawa.  These challenges are designed to help all the children of Day Camp work as a team, which encourages relationship building among the children.  We hope that by building and strengthening these  relationships, each individual child feels like Camp Matawa is a safe and fun place to be.

Day Campers also participate in thrilling camp activities such as archery, canoeing, and fencing, to name a few.  These activities introduce your children to the basics and teach your children about goal setting.  On Monday, campers create age appropriate goals for that activity, that they try to achieve by Thursday.   For example, in fishing, a child who is 7-9 might set a goal of putting a worm on the hook all by themselves, whereas a 10-12 year old might be expected to remove a fish from the hook all by themselves.  If your children achieve their goals at any point during their activity period, they receive a patch for certain activities. 

Also, each morning, we join the over-night campers in Morning Assembly, a time where a staff member shares a story or idea for the kids to think about for the day.  Some of the thoughts are designed to spark the imagination, whereas others have been inspirational in nature.  Some of the fun, imaginative thoughts are about your favorite or least favorite books, or to draw a picture of something that doesn’t exist.  Some of the more inspirational or motivational thoughts have been to not change who you are to fit around other people, setting goals, to accept other people for who they are, or to try and always make a difference, even if it is tiny, it still matters.

Throughout these last couple of weeks, I have been able to watch each of your children come to camp and have fun, mature and grow, whether it be learning about goal setting, valuing other people, or the skills in the camp activities.  Each week, I am amazed to see how awesomely the returning campers welcome the new campers into Day Camp, as well as how quickly the new campers warm up and jump right on in.  I truly hope that this will continue throughout the summer, because it has been a excellent summer, and I’m not nearly ready for it to end. 

There are only two sessions of Day Camp left.   Yikes!  We here at Camp Matawa have really loved having all of your children come to camp the last couple of weeks, and we hope to see them again for the last two sessions.  If they aren’t signed up for either of the last two sessions, we would love to have you sign up, so feel free to call Camp Matawa today!  If you are signed up, TUBULAR! Let’s make the rest of Summer 2011 an awesome one!

In the Spirit of Matawa,

Jeremy

As always,

In the Spirit of Matawa

In the Spirit of Matawa,

The Trek-Trek-Trek Trekkers!

Although the heat wave that is currently gripping camp right now halted our equestrian campers from getting much riding time in, it did not stop them from making the horses look their best. Equestrian director, Maggie, decided this would be the perfect week to teach campers a little bit about showing horses competitively. The campers learned how to braid the horses’ manes and tails, and also clean their hooves. The campers practiced all week long with a culmination of showing their hoses in a mock competition. Myself, Annie (summer camp director), and Beau (camp maintenance), had the privilege of judging this awesome contest. 4 horses were shown with two campers to each horse. They had to work together to get their horse looking in tip top shape. They each got a chance to walk the horses around the indoor arena and also needed to zigzag them through a series of cones. After each camper got a chance to walk their horse, it was then the judge’s turn to decide who they thought groomed and braided their horse the best. It was a tough decision because the campers really did an amazing job! In the end, we picked Tawny as the winner because of his unique braided mane and beautifully French-braided tail. The best part of the competition was seeing how proud and excited the campers were to show off their horses!

In the Spirit of Matawa,

Nikki