By: Ruthie Chaban, third year counselor

I came to GUCI in the summer of 2004 as a Garin camper. I fell in love with the people and the place itself. After my two weeks I couldn’t wait to go back year after year, and even kept in contact with my cabin-mates. Sadly my time never came back due to sickness that took over many parts of my family.

As the years went by I always remembered a time I spent away at a camp. It wasn’t until 2009 I came back to camp because Pam Schuler gave a presentation on camp at my temple. I just had to go see if it was just as I remembered. Ever since my second year Gezah I return to GUCI. I watched and looked up to my counselors and wanted to be like them. I couldn’t wait to be in Avodah; I couldn’t wait to clean the bathrooms. As I ended my camper career and began my Avodah summer, I promised myself that I would come back to camp as a counselor and give back to camp what camp gave me as a camper.

Camp helped shaped me into a person I can be proud of. Now as a third year counselor, I have been given many opportunities. I have been given the chance to make a difference in my campers lives and help them become the people that they can and want to be.  When I started my Machon summer (first year staff member) I came with the advice from my Avodah unit head that, “at the end of the day it’s all about the campers.” I have lived by this motto. I plan for my campers and for their summer. At times it can be hard, yet when you see your campers smiling and laughing and loving the moment they are in and who they are with, it makes it all worth it. That is what matters and that is what counts; the campers.