I want to let everyone know just how wonderful the Grant County adult and 4-H Teen Leaders were at camp this year.

Our younger 4-H camp was a terrific camp, but it was also a real challenge. Our Nutrition Outreach Instructor believes very strongly in the power of 4-H camp. She received a small grant to help bring some of the children she had worked with to camp. (We were hoping for about 10 or 12 new campers.) During the last two weeks before camp she was able to recruit 35 kids who had been in the Expanded Food and Nutrition program; kids who had never been in 4-H or at camp before. The final count was nearly seventy five campers – 40 of them first year. It was exciting. We had to add extra classes, change schedules, train additional counselors and use every bed in camp. (I slept on a stack of mattresses reminiscent of the Princess and the Pea.) The counselors were terrific, explaining things in detail, helping campers through tough times and making camp run smoothly.

As if the new campers weren’t enough of a challenge, we spent one entire evening crowded into the dining hall, watching and praying that the predicted tornados missed our camp. Several teen leaders donned hairnets and aprons and formed a kitchen band – a cross between the WVU drumline and some crazed calypso musicians. It covered up the noise of the thunder, wind, rain and hail, took our minds off of the storm, and kept many campers laughing and clapping instead of crying.

Every now and then the situation would get the better of the teen counselors and one or two would come back into the kitchen where we were monitoring the emergency radio reports and answering frantic telephone calls from parents. I would give them a quick pep talk to calm their feelings of panic, wipe away a stray tear and back they would go to lead songs and keep the campers busy. It seemed to last forever, but in reality it was only about two hours until the most serious warnings had passed and it was safe to send campers back to their cabins.

The adults and teens followed their training and put their own fears behind the need to keep campers calm and safe. I don’t want to experience a storm like that again at camp, but if I must, I would like that same team of volunteers to get me through it.