The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2022 79 ends in drama and an early departure. Transition to Staff. For traditional overnight camps, 16 is the usual age limit for campers. From that point, they would move up to counselor in training (CIT) and counselor. Salaries today are quite competitive, and it’s a super job while attending college—especially since camps cover room and board over the summer on top of a salary. Accreditation. Accreditation by the American Camp Association signifies that the camp’s operations have been thoroughly peer-reviewed, including such critical elements as adequacy of staff training, the quality of the facility, staff emergency preparedness, etc. An ACA review is at least as thorough as an Office of the Inspector General post inspection. Check out www.acacamps.org . How to Find a Camp? Today, an internet search can take you to any and every accredited camp. The choices can be overwhelming, but here are a few helpful sites: • https://www.find.acacamps.org/ • https://www.campchannel.com/ • https://www.camppage.com/ My wife, Jane, and I wish we had taken the advice I present above and sent our kids to camp for a portion of each sum- mer. Between my in-laws’ farm in Texas and visiting the part of my family who never left Hungary, our summers whizzed by during the more than 20 years we served in Africa. Looking back, we have no doubt that our kids would have had a much easier readjustment to being in the United States if they had had the stable anchor that summer camps can provide. We are not repeating that mistake with our grandkids and have already started one on her camping adventure. She was absolutely delighted with her first summer at camp and will be joined by the others in 2022. While our grandkids are not all posted overseas as our kids were, gather- ing at camp each summer will allow the cousins to develop lifelong relationships much stronger than what would come fromoccasional family gatherings. I recommend that every Foreign Service family with kids consider a U.S. summer camp as a highly positive tool to help their children develop and nurture essential life skills, self-confidence, lifelong friendships and a sense of being “American.” n