There are plenty of reasons I became a social worker and a camp director within the Jewish community. Recently, there have been a chain of events that have shown me that I had no idea what the true benefits of my job choice would be. I mean, I knew I was pretty fulfilled with my life; I enjoy waking up to go to work and feel somewhat valuable in the daily life grind. But there have been instances recently that have led me to believe that this job I chose might have this incredible side effect: this job gives me HOPE.
Hope, as defined by good old Webster’s, is: “a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.”
Hope is perhaps the single greatest benefit that could be bestowed upon another person, and this job allows me to hope so very much. There are a lot of negatives in a daily CNN viewing – people seem to be pretty messed up on this planet. here are so many people fighting for freedoms, against violence and just for the right to gain more education that it is actually heart-breaking. I look around at times and wonder: WHAT IS GOING ON? People can’t shop at a mall safely. Countries are maiming and killing their own. Schools spend so much time trying to answer to the state that they don’t get an opportunity to create a love of learning. I could go on and on … and sometimes, for just moments, I do. I get so discouraged. It all feels like it is never going to get better.
But then it happens. I talk to one of my staff members from the summer and I realize that there is so much ahead. I know that working with children allows most people to gain some wistful thoughts about the future, but I am not talking about that. I am talking about being so blessed as to meet the next generation of people who are going to make this world a better place. I am talking about the letters I get to write to City Year, Avodah, Teach for America and other year-long volunteer programs that my staff are hoping to get into. I speak to them and they talk about taking a year off to work in organic farming, volunteer for an environmental company, or take a year to live in another country to educate people and gain knowledge about what is “out there.” These 20-somethings are not getting arrested for DUIs or creating havoc, they are not blasé about the world around them; they are creating change and working towards the betterment of others.
As camping professionals, we use the term “role model” for our staff. We talk with them about how the kids need to look up to them. But I don’t think it ever dawned on me that they are my role models too. These young people are what keep me positive and aware. They inform me about things that I sometimes have stopped paying attention to in my cynical views of the world. These young adults keep me HOPEFUL. They don’t let the world beat them down; they fight it, they know they can make a difference, and they give me back my idealism. Who would have thought it? I spend hours in a year creating an orientation for them to know how to work with children and all along they are giving me one of life’s greatest gifts just by being themselves.
Whether it be a video sent to me where ten of my former staff are celebrating Shabbat together and just wanted me to know that camp made a difference, or a staff member from 20 years ago posts a Facebook message that they are working with children who learn differently and that camp made the difference for them to chose that career, or even when I reconnect with my own peers from my days of being a camp counselor and I realize that, well, these people are the good ones, the ones who are doing things that make this world a more productive, compassionate, and better place. My staff call during their own time to let me know that two campers are having an issue on-line and how can they help. They ask me about what the adulthood thing is really like and are there any secrets to making it all work. They care for and about each other and others. They make me proud. With that pride comes a realization that something good is happening in these summer homes. We are not merely helping families and children through their search for a Jewish connection or a place where kids can be better than they get to be in their everyday lives. We are allowing these staff to create glimmers of positivity. They are learning and being and creating HOPE.
Shabbat
Pronounced: shuh-BAHT or shah-BAHT, Origin: Hebrew, the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
