By Maggie Miles
This is a story about Josh Reynolds, a camper at the first Domain Reading Camp in 2002, who grew up to be a Reading Camp Counselor at the Domain. Josh is just one of the seeds that were planted at that first camp, that took root and grew, with the love and nurturing of all of the good volunteers, his family and church family.
When Josh came home from Reading Camp that first year, he told his mom that he wanted to go back the next year. She had to tell him that he would be too old to go back! Josh got very quiet. Then he said; “Well then, I’m going to grow up fast so that I can go back as a counselor when I’m old enough!” Each June, Josh repeated his intentions. And finally, this year, his faithfulness paid off. Josh became the first Reading Camp alum to serve as a counselor, mentoring other young students as he himself was mentored.
Josh has good memories of his own Reading Camp experience: the Wolf Pen hike. Swim time. The camp store. Meeting George Ella Lyon- a real author! Staying in St. Andrew’s cabin. Looking at a scrapbook he has about camp. Coming home with the desire to be a counselor.
This year, Josh, now a sophomore at Rowan County Senior High School on track to graduate in 2011 was back at the Cathedral Domain, “very excited to do two weeks of camp this summer.” (Josh likes camp so much that he also does 4H camp with kids in Carlisle, Kentucky.) As he observed the campers, he noticed how his own reading had grown and developed. Today, he loves to read science fiction, and the Enders game series, although he confesses that he still “dreads reading for classes.” He also enjoys seeing the campers “become better writers” in the writing center, and remembers his own experiences in writing as a camper.
Josh and his family are great supporters of Reading Camp- and of local efforts with Reading Camp. Each year, St. Albans has a Reading Camp send-off. This year, Annie Dailey and Hunter Clarke were the center of attention as the parish gathered to celebrate and help send them off to camp with full tummies and the blessings of the parish. This year’s celebration was a pot-luck breakfast. The campers, their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles share a meal with the parish. The campers receive goodie bags of practical camp stuff and fun items, including battery powered toothbrushes and disposable cameras, presented in Kung Fu panda bags. The families have commented that the event helps them feel safer about entrusting their children to Reading Camp.
The event makes Reading Camp more tangible to the parish, who not only meet and interact with the new campers, but hear from Josh and his sister, who also attended Reading Camp. The parish purchases cards for “their” Reading Camp children- one for each day of camp. Parish members sign the cards, putting encouraging, funny comments on them. Typically, the Reading Camp liaison begins mailing cards to the Domain the week before camp begins. What excitement when a camper receives mail at camp!
Josh’s aunt, Debbie Howes, is principal of Tilden Hogge Elementary School in Morehead, and has become St. Alban’s partner in reading Camp. Besides identifying and nurturing kids, Debbie is working with St. Alban’s to develop a program to help her kids with reading throughout the school year. Each time we talk about Reading Camp, Debbie’s eyes well up with tears about how Reading Camp “saved Josh’s life.” And each year, she has more students whose continuing progress validate her professional as well as personal investment in this ministry.
Josh didn’t tell the campers at the beginning of the week that he was a former camper himself. Each night, the counselors and teachers write in the campers’ journals, offering words of support and encouragement to them. Midweek at the Domain, Josh wrote each of his campers individually, telling them via their journals about his own experiences as a Reading Camper, and since that time. What excitement went around the Domain when the campers heard the story of how this counselor they admired had once been a camper just like them.
So, while this is a story about Josh, a Reading Camper who grew up to become a Reading Camp counselor, it’s also a story about how we are all transformed by Reading Camp. It’s a story about the dedicated work of family, priests, parishioners, Reading Camp staff, volunteers, principals, teachers…over the long haul of many years.
It’s about seeds planted, and flowers that bloom in many places as a result of the planting. Some of the blooming will happen in gardens we will never see. Some of the seeds will be passed along in families and classrooms and end up in places we could never imagine.
Remember Josh –and tell his story wherever you can tell it. For every Reading Camp, there is a Josh—perhaps several Josh’s, and a blooming that is bigger than any child, or adult or particular camp.
It’s about what wondrous things Gods can do, if we each do our part, and trust.
Maggie Miles is the Reading Camp liaison for St. Alban’s, Morehead, and claims that the story of Josh and Reading Camp brought her to St. Alban’s and the Episcopal Church. “A church that is in the world, sleeves rolled up and meeting people where they are, is a church I want to be a part of,” she says.
-Maggie Miles is a member of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Morehead, Kentucky. Maggie serves the ministry of Reading Camp in many ways, most especially as a recruiter for children from Morehead to come to the Cathedral Domain Reading Camp each summer.
*This article first appeared in the September 2008 edition of the Advocate.
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