A Recipe For Magic
Served with a side of instruction

By Gary Forster

Summer camp for youth has been around since 1861. How could anything continue to be so popular for so long, with such passionate proponents in every generation, unless it has real magic? Most of my previous Camp Business articles have dealt with  a leadership dimension--making wise choices based on listening, caring and measuring--creatively borrowing ideas that have proven successful (in camping and elsewhere) and taking action.

But is there something more elemental than that? Could much of the success of youth camping be attributed to an original formula--a secret recipe that’s been duplicated, altered but often unwittingly ignored? I’m eager to hear what you think about this thesis-in-progress, and what it might mean for camps.

Walt Whitman Was Right (And So Was Your Mother) 
It was 150 years ago when Walt Whitman wrote, “Now I see the secret of making the best person: It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” Your mom paraphrased him every time you sat in front of the TV during the day: “Go outside and play!” Richard Louve in his famous book, Last Child in the Woods, laid out the consequences of moms today being too fearful to repeat their own mother’s words. (Signs that the pendulum may be swinging back are the many grassroots “No Child Left Inside” initiatives.) Louve used anthropological and biological research to strengthen his message. Seventy years before, Anne Frank said it from her heart:  “God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.” So the first ingredient of camp is a beautiful outdoor setting.