When you're a camp counselor, you find yourself saying phrases that you never thought you would have to say, but strangely make sense in a camp context. Depending on the age that you work with, these sentences vary from "Why didn't you put on underwear when you were changing?" to "No, Alice, I don't know who owns the moon." (a very valid question, but still.) On the flip side, however, sometimes campers will say or do something so profound that it makes you stop and think about why you became a camp counselor.

For four weeks this summer, I had the honor of being an assistant counselor at a YMCA camp in Northern Kentucky. One of the most memorable weeks of the summer was when I was assigned to a cabin of girls that were way younger than I was used to working with. Usually, I stuck to the oldest unit of campers, who were incoming 8th and 9th graders. For this week, though, I was put in a cabin of incoming 4th and 5th graders, aka Cabin 7. Needless to say, I was terrified, but I tried to keep an open mind because my co-counselors were friends of mine and I had a good support system with that unit's staff.

There were 13 campers and three counselors in Cabin 7. YMCA camps have opportunities to send kids to camp using financial assistance and scholarships, so many kids came from extremely different walks of life. Our cabin was very diverse, in terms of ability, race, background, and personality.

Since I had been working with older kids for a while, I almost wasn't sure how to treat these girls. Do I talk to them with the same level of vocabulary as I did with the older campers? Will they detect sarcasm? As they came into the cabin one by one on the first day, I saw myself in them. Young, excited girls with unbridled pure enthusiasm, ready for an exciting week of activities and new friends. I knew that they, like me, just wanted to have the best week of their lives, and I wanted to help them with that.

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As the week went on, the campers grew closer and helped each other in situations both large and small. My personal favorite camp activity is called Vespers, where the cabin sits down and has a genuine, meaningful talk about what camp means to them and why they keep coming back. Since the campers are young, they may not realize the impact that this summer camp has and how it helps them to "let their light shine." For the counselors, many have been attending the camp for over a decade, and have met some of their best friends there. The staff uses Vespers to help the campers see the magic that summer camp can have, and helps them to appreciate everything.

Unfortunately, this week I had to miss Vespers to attend to a sick camper, but after the activity, my girls came running back to the cabin with tears streaming down their faces. They all saw what made camp so magical and important, and I could tell that, for my campers, this was when they got to fully witness and appreciate the broad happiness that camp brings. Two months later, I still think about Cabin 7 every day and how they taught me countless lessons about respect, kindness, and how to land the perfect cartwheel.