What's your best memory of Winter Camp 2009?

What a great camp! It was so good seeing everyone, playing together and greeting new folks to the Under One Sky family. My favorite part of camp was filming the closing circle. I got great shots of everybody in circle, geese flying overhead, the horses in the field behind Christophers and a fantastic finale! What great music we all made together at the end with our flutes and shakers–man, have we got rhythm. But we already knew that, right? Right. :) I loved seeing each and every one of you–campers and staff–and want to thank all of you for showing up in such a big way. Also thanks to Warren Wilson College for letting us use their pool and gym, and thanks to the MANNA folks for allowing part of our group to volunteer there on Saturday.

I know this will be the first post some of you have seen, but please take the time to email me if you want to WRITE your own blogs on this site. It’s pretty easy to set up. You can write about anything related to Under One Sky and it will go out to everyone on the list, so other folks can share and comment too. It’s a great way to stay connected!

Ok–gotta go, can’t wait for next camp. Any guesses as to Spring Camp’s theme? And can anybody guess what our BIG, EXCITING activity will be?

Lots of love,

Holly Paar, Program Manager, Under One Sky, Inc. www.under1sky.org

This Winter’s camp theme is Integration. It’s kind of a big word, and we certainly don’t hear it often, but it’s a very important word and has many uses. Integration means the act of combining into a whole, and often specifically means incorporating a religious or racial group into a community. Now do you know why we picked it for camp? We actually had two reasons: first, it’s Black History Month, and with our first African-American president in office it’s a perfect time to celebrate integration in a big way; second, we have some new faces that are going to be joining us at camp! So our theme will also serve as a reminder to bring these new youth into our family and circle of friends.

There’s another meaning to integration. Just like it can be used to talk about bringing groups of people into one whole community, it can also refer to bringing together lots of aspects of ourselves that are often forgotten about or put on the back burner. Let’s say for instance, that I used to write a lot or maybe I liked drawing. Somehow though, I forgot that I liked doing it, or maybe somebody criticized the way I wrote or what I liked to draw and so I just quit. We can take time to re-find these parts of ourselves and–you guessed it–INTEGRATE them back into our lives.

See ya’ll at camp! — Miss Holly

Gotta go for now, much love and peace,

Holly

Look forward to hearing from you soon!

Holly Paar, Program Manager, Under One Sky, Inc.