The first year that eight-year-old twins Katie and Lucy attended the Language Villages, they came as day campers. Though their mother, Debbie Hamill, had been a villager herself at Waldsee from 1977 to 1980 and their siblings Grant and Lee had been villagers already for several years, Katie and Lucy decided they might like to start their own Villages experience by attending a German day camp.
In years past, their brother and sister flew to camp, then their parents would come to Minnesota from their Austin, Tex., home to pick them up. In 2007, though, their parents drove everyone to camp and stayed at a resort very close to the Waldsee site near Bemidji, Minn. Grant and Lee attended overnight camp as usual, but Katie and Lucy attended only during the day, returning to the resort in the evening with their parents.
The twins did all the traditional camp activities, some with the overnight villagers and some just with the day campers. They had a blast, learning to speak and understand German, swimming at the beach, visiting the Laden (store), and enjoying authentic German meals. A highlight for them was being part of dean Dan Karl Hamilton’s progressive Village environmental activities, like planting trees to help Waldsee become carbon-neutral.
Katie and Lucy also liked that they had a lot of choices available to them during activity time. In fact, that was their favorite part of camp. Debbie says that she felt the staff worked hard to individualize the program to meet the needs and interests of the kids. She says the counselors were “incredibly flexible and accommodating…they let the kids get out of the experience what they wanted to get out of it. It’s an amazing place for kids to get to be themselves.”
After having a great time at day camp in 2007, Katie and Lucy both happily attended overnight camp in 2008. Since they were already familiar with the site and the staff, it was an easy transition. In fact, the German they learned at day camp was comparable to the amount of German their brother and sister had learned at the residential camps their first year, reports Debbie.
What’s the one drawback to the twins now attending overnight camp? Debbie particularly enjoyed the day camp experience as a parent because she got to glimpse inside the camp every day. It brought back memories of her own years as a villager. Luckily for Debbie, Waldsee now offers summer family weeks, too!
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“Service is a big part of my life, but I would like to branch out in the kind of service I do,” Chloe elaborated.
