The Henderson County Young Leaders Program

The Henderson County Young Leadership Program is completely different to anything I have ever done. It is a leadership camp for kids in the county of Hendersonville who may not have the financial means to come to camp. They get to go as a reward for doing well in the program and it is a week long, Co-Ed camp that is sort of "renting out" Camp Ton-A-Wandah.

Because it is a completely different camp, we all had to report to Orientation the morning of the kid's arrival. It was so strange to walk into little Rec with half the staff being male counselors. In fact, it was surreal. The boys immediately brought a new energy to camp and the fun began! We played some get to know you games and then sat down with the camp coordinators to discuss the program. We learnt that the days were going to be structured a little differently, with two hours in the morning dedicated to leadership workshops and then four one-hour long activity periods. There was also a "word of the day" that was to be presented every morning and was to be aspired to each day. The entire concept was golden and I knew right away that this camp was going to be completely different to anything I had ever done.

Jourdan and I were Co-Cos again but with the addition of a third Musketeer: Candice. We were placed in Walnut cabin and had a group of eight 10 year olds. They were all such sweet girls who were all so excited to be at camp and all so grateful, polite, well mannered and well behaved. They answered everything with "yes ma'am" and it was so cute!

I was placed in charge of teaching these crazy kids karate and again the boys brought such an energy to the one hour classes, that we powered through everything at an extreme pace! I also taught kayaking with a guy named Ethan. He was great! He is a Harvard University graduate and had also been working at a camp all summer. He and I had fun trading camp games and ideas and he even came with the greatest kayaking adventure of the summer!

We organized with camp to get a huge box of candy. We then put all the kids in their kayaks and headed off on a lake wide, single file paddling trip. We then beached on a man made island close to shore and went on a little hike into the woods where we sat in a circle on the ground. We then brought out the Skittles and each person drew out two candies of differing colours. Each colour represented a question you had to answer about yourself. Things like "What is your biggest fear", "what is your fondest memory", "what is your most embarrassing moment" or "who is your hero". It was the most incredible game and the most incredible two classes. Those kids have so much depth and what made it even better is that we played in the pouring rain and it didn't break anyone's spirit, in fact it lifted everyone's! It's a memory I will have for the rest of my life.

The highlight of the week was the camp wide White Water Rafting trip! We all piled into busses and headed to Tennessee toward the mighty Pigeon river: a class 4 river rapid! We were assigned to boats with 4 campers, 1 counselor and 1 guide. Our guide was named Jordan and was great fun! He was only 20 years old and his and my humor were so alike that we kept scaring all the kids with our jokes. At one point, he and I pretended we were going to flip the boat, but he was so committed to playing along that he actually hung off the side of the raft and lifted one entire side off the water! High!
We were also allowed to hop out of the boat and swim at certain points, I wasn't going to get in the water but Jordan ran at me from the far end of the raft, grabbed me by the life jacket, forward flipped over me, and pulled me into the water! He then had to go rescue the boat and pull us all back in as he had essentially abandoned ship!
It was great fun and I think the kids enjoyed it as much as I did, at least I hope they did!

As the week came to a close it was a tearful goodbye yet again as all the kids climbed into their busses and waved goodbye. We then all went to lunch, received our payments and went our separate ways. This was the last goodbye and it weighed heavily on me.

A few of us were staying one last night. Caroline and I moved into the lodge and asked to use the camp van to go and get some food. We were told yes but we had to do a chore as "payment".
The lake at Ton-A-Wandah disappears underneath the dining hall. Coming off the dining hall and hanging over the lake are about 10 flower pots that have geranium flowers brimming out of them, our job was to water them and pull out all the dead ones. Now the only way to get to these plant pots is by canoe so off we went a-paddling!

The task was a lot harder than expected! We had to juggle between watering the plants, getting close enough to actually do this, not flooding the dinning hall and avoiding the massive spiderwebs and the spiders that lay in them, all the while trying not to tip the canoe! It probably took us 40 minutes to achieve the seemingly simple task and we were absolutely exhausted once we were through.

The next day was the day we had been dreading all summer long: the day we had to part ways. Caroline, Bizzy and I all packed up the car and headed to the airport. It was a sad trip and once we arrived, I walked Caroline in and helped her check her luggage. She was off to Florida, and I was staying one more night. I walked her to the boarding gates and stopped to hug her goodbye. It was the saddest hug I have ever felt but it was filled with so much hope and so much promise. We finally let go and she walked into the boarding zone and out of my sight.

We would see each other's again in two months.

The next day, Bizzy drove me to the station, and I hopped on a bus down to Florida to meet up with my Canadian friend Amir, whom I had met in Montreal at the Karate Commonwealth Tournament last year. His family was going to Walt Disney World and he invited me to tag along!