Finbrooke... :)

          Last week I wrote a post on Leader’s Weekend. I have realized that I really need a post on the place I grew up that led me to spend as much time volunteering and working with the Girl Scouts as an organization, and truly shaped a lot of who I am today, and who I will be in the future. This place is Camp Finbrooke (currently known as Finbrooke Program Center). I started spending time at Finbrooke back in 1983 (sorry for showing my age here) it all started with day trips to camp and rapidly progressed to overnight trips and then to spending entire weeks out there during the summer at the Resident Camp programs. Side note: when you’re 8 years old, the staff at camp seems so grown up & mature… now as an adult that has worked out there off & on for more years than I can count, I realize that when you’re that little the 18-23 year old crowd does seem old and it does take a special breed of young woman to take on that role as role model and caretaker for young girls.

          I was never satisfied with one week at camp either, I wanted to be out there anytime the gates were open for kids my age, I would literally spend Fall, Winter and Spring finding ways to make and save money to pay for camp as well as peddling cookies like no one’s business to be able to use my “cookie credit” to pay for more time at camp. I was focused. I was even willing to give up time with my horses I had to go to camp for as long as possible every summer. I loved spending time out there. Eating in the old rustic lodge (it burned in 1993, and was replaced with a modern one), putting mail in the mailbox, swimming in the pool and the river, changing in the shower house that had no roof (replaced with a fancy new one since then) hiking everywhere, crafts, singing, cooking over a campfire, canoeing, all of the fun, plus getting to be dirty all summer long too J This is how I grew up, no air conditioning in the summer, staying up late, singing, hanging out with tons of other girls and giggling late into the night. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Oh and the joy when I was finally old enough to sign up for the Counselor In Training (CIT) program, that meant I was almost old enough to do the ultimate, work at camp!!! So exciting, never realized how exhausting it was to be a camp counselor, or how much work it was, but the one summer I did it then I LOVED it.

Time and things happened and I spent a few years away from camp. My daughter was about to start school so I went to the office and signed up to be a leader for a Daisy troop in our town. My first training as an adult was out at Finbrooke, it was like I’d never left (to a point) it still felt like home. The same camp ranger was working there, the trainer for my class was actually an adult I’d played mud volleyball with at camp as a kid. It was home. As time went on I managed to spend parts of my summers at camp (which gave my daughter more weeks to be at camp too, she was not unhappy about that at all) and then landed a school nurse job. That was the ultimate, it gave me the chance to apply to be the Camp Nurse and spend the entire summer out there, which I did for more than a few years. Way too cool, not much sleep, but so much fun, almost can’t believe I’m moving on, but the time has come to embrace my new opportunities and put my summers of camp behind me. J/L

I've added a few pictures, believe me choosing just these was a major challenge. At last check I have over 1,000 camp pictures available to me, not to mention the many I can get off of other counselor's Facebook pages :)

 Above is Jake's House, the original structure on camp, we can't use the house anymore, but it is currently still standing and one of my favorite places to visit at camp.

 A view of the Finley River, we have access at two points to it for canoeing, kayaking and swimming.

 The Spring House, down by Jake's House, nice cool place to visit in the heat of the summer.

 This is a platform tent, sorry it's not a great picture for this purpose, I took it for a project at camp last year, The oldest kids get the chance to sleep in these, when I was a kid we pretty much all slept in them... now we have permatents, I added a picture of one of those too.

This is the 40 foot side of our climbing tower, it was added a few years ago & is pretty fun. That's me climbing it at Leader's Weekend last year.

 The old lodge that burned in 1993, the ranger still has the hand carved Dogwood Lodge sign and is looking for the appropriate place for it to live and be enjoyed.

 Our new more modern lodge built up on the hill. It's nice, but I miss the old one some days, lots of memories in that old building.

 The bell in the middle of main camp. Lots of memories with it too.

A permatent (the structure most kids sleep in at camp currently)