Author: Ryan Bocchino

Yesterday a child came out to WONDER

Shabbat Shalom Ranch Camp!

What a wonderful week it has been. We’ve had an absolute blast in our first full week of Session 3. I cannot believe that we are looking down the horizon of the last week of camp. This has been an absolutely amazing session so far and it’s crazy that it is so close to the end.

This week we had quite the laundry list of exciting activities. Our TASCers began their 10 day trip on Monday, and are having quite the adventure up north despite, or in spite of, some pretty consistent rain every day. Not to mention our Toshavim 8th grade boys took their four day to Staunton State Park and also had such a great time, also, in spite of the rain and some sniffles on the trail.

Back at camp, it’s been a weather weird week. We got missed by the biggest storm of the summer, we had an awesome time at Gold Rush on Wednesday, we had an completely unhinged afternoon at Mayhem Day, where I was dunked in the dunk tank by basically every Toshavim camper, over, and over, and over again. It was a riot of a day only marred by the fact that it was the first day below 80 degrees Fahrenheit (it was about 60) for the first time all summer.

We had a fantastic Shabbat together with all our campers, indoors, as it was once again storming out on Friday night. The Mo was full of soul, signature, spirit and song. Once the storm cleared out, we danced outside under what was the best night sky of the summer – you’ll see some of the beauty in some of our pictures.

I truly cannot believe we are looking down the chute to the last seven days of main camp for 2022. It was been a summer for the record books, outside of a pool that deserves to be a skate park, but a summer for the record books nonetheless. I hope this session and the sessions before it have helped your campers be the best possible versions of themselves and given them a confidence in their ability to make the world a better place through their own actions.

Yasher Session 3!

Shabbat Shalom Ranch Camp Families!

What an amazing first week kicking off Session 3. It is truly a packed house this session! We’ve got over 160 campers on site and almost every bed at camp is full – it’s a really awesome send off to what has been a phenomenal summer.

The first week of the session is always my favorite – seeing friends reconnect and faces light up throughout the first few days is a real treat and never stops putting a smile on my face. It’s awesome to see so many campers returning this session for 2021 and beyond, really bringing a full (and very loud) community for our last camp session of the summer!

Truly appreciate everyone’s patience at drop off. I know check-in took a little longer than expected for some of ya’ll, and I can’t thank everyone enough for being so patient coming in for arrival.

It couldn’t be the first week of camp without some great activities. We’ve spent the first few days in cabin cohorts, and when we get through our final round of COVID testing, we’ll break out into activity groups and get camp fired up proper on Sunday morning. That being said, we had an awesome first few days of program, riding horses and bikes, screaming down the zip line, and jammin’ it up with some ultimate frisbee on the sports field. We had an AMAZING all camp capture the flag to close out our first few days of evening programs, congrats to the red team (not playing favorites at all) on their absolutely dominating victory.

Our first Shabbat today was so full of people, and full of soul. The community that comes during Session 3 is a special one – very invested into camp and its myriad of unique traditions – and whether its chanting in the Chad, or morning Degel, or bumping tunes during Shabbat services, this crew really brought the energy to our first Shabbat weekend and I can’t WAIT to see where it goes from here.

So excited for what this coming week will bring. Enjoy the photos, stories, and journeys your campers take as we rock into the rest of Session 3!

We Are One

Oh man, what a session. What a week! What an amazing way to kick off 2022.

As we wind down into our second soul-filling Shabbat of 2022, I couldn’t be more thrilled with the start to what has already been an amazing summer. We’ve had an action-packed Session 1 and the second week launched it truly into orbit. From seeing the sales pitches made during our camper ‘Shark Tank’ to the amazing acts including a live-singing of ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ during Kaleidoscope (our talent show) as well as a camp dog doing wild tricks on stage, it’s been a wild week of seeing campers step outside their comfort zones and show us the best they have to offer as their individual selves.

On top of all of that, we also broke the week up with some pretty intense competition! This past Thursday was the first of our three camper Maccabiahs for 2022, with an over-the-top afternoon where the green team ultimately took the cake (quite literally, for some of the challenges) at the end of the day. It was an awesome day culminated by the Mac-o-Peel, thecross-campus relay race that starts at the front gate and finishes all the way at Niven Field.

Weeks like this are a special time at camp. We break up and have some pretty serious competitive events, which, depending on your camper, may sometimes be taken a little too seriously! We struggle, we yell, we scream, all in the name of our team winning and, most importantly, having as much fun packed into a single day as we can. It’s a nice reminder at the end of the day, when we celebrate with a color powder party, that our teams, at the end of the day, don’t really matter too much. The wrap up of this day serves as an important reminder that we are one family, no matter who we are, what we look like, how we identify or where we come from.

Despite our early challenges in the session and taking an impromptu evacuation field trip to the Elbert County fairgrounds, it’s been so great having a ‘normal’ first session of 2022 so far.  It was great hearing our 8th grades reflect on their four-day, and amazing to hear from all our campers on some of their reflections on what they’ve enjoyed most about camp during this week’s Shabbat service. I can’t wait for the stories to be shared with you.

Shabbat Shalom Ranch Camp. We’ll see you Sunday morning!

The First Shabbat

It’s on! What an amazing first week we’ve had to kick off 2022. From new sports like ultimate frisbee, to new friends being made, (Cabin 14 leading the way here) it has been a week of absolute awesomeness that has fired up our first week with campers.

Camp getting ‘fired up’ was an interesting choice of words, I guess, given the circumstances of the week. It’s still hard to grasp that we were evacuating camp on day three of the session, but we were able to do so safely, successfully, and get everyone off camp in under twenty minutes. I couldn’t even begin to imagine having to order the evacuation of both campers and horses and pray we will never have to again. However, it was also so reassuring to know that this is a team and a place that can respond to an emergency when the need arises. A big Shabbat thank you to our Elbert County First Responders, as well as the wildland fire crew who got the fire near us under control in just a few hours. I deeply appreciate the community’s patience with our first-time camper calls, being out of the property for most of Wednesday has really set us back a bit.

Despite the stress of Wednesday afternoon, it has been absolutely amazing getting back to what feels relatively normal, and a lot more like camp than how we began summer 2021. Seeing campers out and about with their peers and just enjoying being at camp has been a true blessing and truly sets camp apart as a space where campers can feel safe and able to just enjoy being themselves in the company of friends. 

As the story of the Torah wraps our 40 years in the desert, it’s been great to wrap our first week of camp after three weeks of staff training. Being able to have this community together, after years of waiting for a ‘normal’ week of camp, has really been one for the record books. From watching our Mini Campers do the ropes course and get up in the air ten times their own height, to seeing our EQers get their horses for the first time today, it’s been challenging, but a soul-filling few days. It’s been great to see staff leading chugim (electives) again, bringing their own passions to camp to share with kids and build an even better experience for campers. 

I’m excited about our first Shabbat dinner together and, a sentiment I’m sure I share with a majority of our campers and staff, cannot wait to see what the next week brings.

Shabbat Shalom Ranch Camp! See you in Week 2 of Session 1.