Shalom GUCI!

Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!  It’s difficult for me to believe that Kallah Aleph 2015 ends in two days.  The session has flown by for our staff and campers, and I bet it’s flown by for parents as well.  For me specifically, the last eight months have been the fastest I can remember.  I accepted this job at the beginning of October, and that started a whirlwind of evaluating, organizing, planning, interviewing, hiring, recruiting, and dreaming about what camp could be for our community.

GUCI has been amazing this session!  It is incredibly gratifying for us to see camp on its way to accomplishing some of the short-term goals we set earlier this year.  The positive response to some of the changes we made and new programs implemented gives us a great sense of confidence that camp is on the right track.  Our Taste of GUCI Program is an excellent example.  This session alone we had 35 rising 3rd thru 6th graders try camp for two weeks.  These campers were fully integrated into our overnight program.  They chose electives, had bunk night, participated in Yom Sport (color war), and climbed our Migdal (Alpine Tower).  Twenty percent of these campers took advantage of the opportunity to extend their session to four weeks!  We have 40 campers in the Taste Program for Kallah Bet (second session)!  What a tremendous success!

Before summer, we set goals aimed at increasing our campers’ activity during the day, and allowing them more choice in our electives program.  The Nosaf Program was born!  Our traditional Chug (elective) Program allows campers to choose an activity (art, archery, sports, drama, video, music, etc) that runs for two weeks.  Nosaf allows campers to choose a specific skills-building elective that runs for 3 days.  We offered, photography, challah baking, ultimate Frisbee, Israeli dance, drama, music etc.  Between Chuggim and Nosaf, our campers participated in activities they already enjoyed, and also got a variety of new experiences to build on.

Perhaps the most successful changes we made this summer were to our menu.  One of our primary goals at camp is to create a welcoming and comforting environment.  Having good food to eat at camp is a big factor in camper comfort.  We increased our overall food budget substantially in order to buy higher quality foods.  As a result, many of the meals camp has served for years, such as chicken patties, tacos, fish and our Shabbat dinner, saw immediate improvement.  We insisted on variety in our two salad bars.  Campers never knew what would be on the bar, so their curiosity brought them to fresh salads with a variety of lettuce, fresh fruits, tuna and chicken salads, cottage cheeses, specialty salads, and occasionally some goodies like chocolate or vanilla pudding with bananas.   We also started using our salad bar at breakfast, offering a variety of fresh fruits, yogurts, cucumbers and tomato salads, etc.  The response has been so spectacular that we are looking to add an additional salad bar station to meet the need.  It’s a big step in the right direction, and we know there is still room to improve.

Our GUCI community grows stronger every day as we thoughtfully evolve to meet the needs of our families.  Onward and upward, GUCI!

Shabbat Shalom!

– Jeremy Klotz