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Camp leaders making a difference.

Article Excerpt
As professionals in the field of camp we make a difference. Like the stars that punctuate the night sky with their shimmering lights, camp staff hold a beacon of light for many children and adults. In big ways and small ways, every day, camp professionals are enriching lives. Camping Magazine endeavors to give you a glimpse of the power of making a difference that the camp experience lends to those who answer the call. Although countless volumes of Camping Magazine would be needed to tell the stories of camp professionals who have made a difference, please enjoy the stories of five camp professionals who join you in the journey, who are shining examples of what it means to touch lives in a positive and profound way.

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Charles Butler

Retired from National Institute of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as Supervisor of Recreation

Therapy and Coordinator of Recreation for Camp Fantastic, Winchester, Virginia

I've worked with children at camp for over forty years. My original campers are now over forty years old. Many are providing similar camp experiences for their own children. It's rewarding to know I made a difference in their lives.

In the rolling acres of farm country along the eastern shore in Chestertown, Maryland, a stone's throw from Chesapeake Bay, Charles Butler played with his buddies and siblings as a child in the mid forties/early fifties. "I had the space to be adventurous," says Butler. "We called the rural areas 'the woods'; now, they call it 'parks.' We had plenty of areas to go camping." The pristine wilderness that surrounded his family home served as motivation for his love of the outdoors and fostered in Butler an appreciation for the growth opportunities lent by outdoor adventure. Hours of boyhood fun spent around campfires, investigating creek beds, and appreciating the night sounds of woodsy evenings outdoors at camp as a boy scout, all were factors in Butler's choice of a career in the camp field.

In 1972, Butler began running day camp programs for the Washington, D.C., Recreation Department, which served inner-city youth from the D.C. area and children with special needs, including mental impairments and physical disabilities. "There is such satisfaction in knowing you are helping children with special needs who don't ordinarily have opportunities to get outside and play," comments Butler. "I contributed to the growth of these young children by helping them enjoy life; these special times are needed sometimes much more than they are for a child with normal abilities."

Butler remembers taking the inner-city youth on overnight trips and witnessing the awe in the children who only knew the light and noise of city life. "We took the kids to wilderness areas throughout Maryland and Virginia and gave them opportunities to get involved in the outdoors-- to see the darkness without the glow of city lights, to see the nocturnal animals, and look up and see the stars. The kids even asked me what the stars were, because they had never seen them before. I saw how much enjoyment they got out of these trips,...

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