As a senior Cornerstone Fellow, I was assigned to come up with a Shiputzim (project idea) that I believe would benefit our camp. I attended the cornerstone retreat where I worked along side other selected senior fellows and Jewish educators. We all came into the trip with different goals, backgrounds, and camp experiences. As a team we worked together to provide each other feedback and implement our new learning to our projects.

For Camp George, I created a program bank full of complete program write up, icebreakers, name games, and Shabbat walks. My project also has a section that goes over ways that staff can implement reflection after programs. It has reflection prompts and questions for each unit.

The project booklet is divided up into different sections, one for each unit. This helps ensure that the programs and activities ran with campers are age appropriate. My project aims to strengthen the programs we deliver to our campers as well as ensure it aligns up with camp values and Jewish learning.

During staff training week before the session started staff were presented with my project and had the opportunity to get familiar with the booklet. Staff then worked with their co staff to choose some of the name games and icebreaker they wanted to run the first couple days of camp. This gave campers the opportunity to get to know each other, find commonalities, and start building relationships.

During staff training week all the staff also had to create camp wide programming, evening programs, bunk nights, and lots more. Staff referred to my booklet for inspiration and guidance when creating their programs. Throughout the session as staff continue to create programs and learn more about their campers, they can continue to refer back to my project as a guide. As Camp goes on, this project will continue to be a resource staff can refer to when creating programs.

Written by: Yael Haas, Kochavim Unit Head