“I won’t forget when you and I became friends / I am still so glad I feel like I can fly / And when we come back here when the winter ends/I just know I’ll see you back at Mountain Chai.
Our nights are filled with laughter / And the sun shines every day / I’ll remember you long after / It is time to go away.”
So go a few verses of the Camp Mountain Chai song, which hundreds of campers doubtless know by heart, and which conjures happy memories of summers celebrating Judaism with friends in the San Bernardino National Forest. If you’ve ever attended a session (or two, or three, or four) of Jewish overnight summer camp, you probably remember all too well your own camp’s song. But before 2006, Mountain Chai — a pluralistic, independent, kosher Jewish sleepaway camp — didn’t even exist. In fact, there wasn’t a single Jewish overnight summer camp headquartered anywhere in San Diego specifically for the region’s kids and teens. But that summer, 125 campers came to the brand new Jewish summer camp over a five-week summer, in effect becoming pioneers in establishing tradition, memories and history associated with Mountain Chai.
Having just completed its sixth summer of camp, Mountain Chai has grown significantly. In summer 2011, the camp welcomed 525 campers over six weeks, 249 of whom were experiencing their very first summer of Jewish camp — twice as many as the total number of campers Mountain Chai welcomed its first summer. And, say Executive Director Alan Friedman and Camp Director Steve Gerard, they’re seeing an increase in the number of returning campers who are registering for longer sessions, converting from the two-week to the three-week option. And though 65-70 percent of their campers are from San Diego, they also welcome campers from other parts of the southernmost part of Southern California, as well as the Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas areas, say Gerard and Friedman.
In the past few years, as Mountain Chai has evolved, Friedman and Gerard have added new programming to the mix of “traditional” camp activities already offered.
Most notably, three years ago they added a leadership-training component for campers entering their high school freshman and sophomore years, as sort of a transition from their childhood to teenage camping years.
“When you get to that age, if you’ve been to camp forever, I don’t know how many times you want to go to arts and crafts,” Gerard says, laughing. To address the evolving interests of these 14- and 15-year-old campers, they’ve created the Atid (‘future’ in Hebrew) unit, in which campers learn teamwork and leadership on four-day trips during their sessions to places like Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, the Sequoias and Northern California for white water rafting.
“They’re responsible for everything,” Gerard continues. “Their gear, loading the bus, setting up camp, cooking, all with the guidance of their counselors. They need to work together…It’s a great opportunity for those younger kids to be with older kids.”
The beauty of where CMC currently stands is that it’s still new enough to have a blank slate, to become the best, most innovative camp it can possibly be. At the same time, it’s now developed a solid enough foundation to claim its own established history, traditions and alumni.
“It’s only been in the past two years that we’ve finally had some kids, slowly but surely, who have been at camp already,” Gerard says, “and who are now old enough to become counselors, who do look at camp as their home away from home. They have a connection to it more so than just the person you find in Florida who comes across country to work in Southern California for the summer…Each year, with the development of our leadership program and our Staff in Training (SIT) program, and having had the time for the kids to mature through the ranks, they are now becoming that final missing piece of completing that community. We have a number of staff there now who look at Camp Mountain Chai as their home as well, because it’s where they were, it’s where they grew up.”
Currently, the SIT program is for campers entering 11th grade. They then apply to join the staff as incoming high school seniors. Says Friedman, he and Gerard are considering making the SIT program for teens entering their senior year, so that every staff counselor will be at least college-age. They would then introduce an Israel trip or a service-learning trip to another U.S. location as an alternative to traditional camp sessions for teens entering 11th grade, beginning in summer 2013.
“There are a lot of ideas out there in regards to where you can take a relatively new camp, and now we’re just looking at those,” Friedman says.
With the success of the leadership program and with growing numbers of campers and a solid footing during its regular summer sessions, CMC is endeavoring to make camp a year-round experience with off-season activities right here in San Diego.
“We’ll always have our traditional summer camp, but in five years, I could see us offering more specialty programs, maybe off site,” Friedman says. “Maybe it’s a program where you’re taking the same philosophy of camp and the same informal Jewish education, the same Shabbat and the same community, but you’re creating it on a university campus, or you’re offering a waterski specialty or surfing specialty, things like that. It’s sort of camp without borders.”
That’s a distant goal, but more immediately, and more certainly, Friedman and Gerard are excited about offering some social action projects locally during the winter, starting January 2012.
“We are taking the approach of doing a project, like service learning, out in the community, depending on the age group,” Friedman says. “So for instance, because the theme for our seventh and eighth graders when they’re at camp is social action, we might have them participate in a Camp Mountain Chai beach cleanup or volunteer day. We’re working on finalizing some of our sites and programs, but each one is going to be a specific program along the lines of what we’re trying to do with them at camp, but in San Diego. For our ninth and 10th graders, they have this leadership component, so we might do some kind of component on a college campus, maybe partnering with Hillel or with a Judaic studies department [so they can see] how life on a college campus from a Jewish perspective is.”
Adds Friedman, they’re also considering local family programming, perhaps a Tu B’Shevat family hike next February, as well as activities next April and June, all open to campers, campers’ friends and family, and even the community. And as always, they’ll continue their on-site off-season retreats, which invite men, women, grandparents and grandkids, single-parent families, and fourth, fifth and sixth grade kids to enjoy the facilities at their own separate retreats.
Next summer, Mountain Chai will continue to grow its offerings by beginning a seven-week session, so campers will be able to choose from two, three, five or seven weeks away at camp.
An important factor behind Mountain Chai’s effort to diversify its offerings and evolve its programming, and one reason behind the ever-increasing numbers of campers, is the programs of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, like the JWest Campership program and One Happy Camper (which are incentive programs to encourage campers to attend) and Executive Leadership Institute (an 18-month leadership program for camp directors).
“Jewish camp as a whole across the country is only serving about 10 percent of the eligible Jewish population of Jewish kids, so the Foundation for Jewish Camp is doing tons of different programs now to raise that number,” Girard says. “Their goal is to double [the number of campers] in the next five years and really take it to the next level.”
In addition to One Happy Camper, which gives kids who are new to Jewish camping an incentive grant during their first year, and JWest, which gives incentive grants to returning middle school-aged campers residing in 13 western states, the Leichtag Family Foundation also offers scholarships to North County kids to attend, and Camp Mountain Chai offers its own incentive grants for first-time campers. (Additionally, the Leichtag Family Foundation also funds the tuition for a two-week session each summer for six Israeli teens from Sha’ar HaNegev, San Diego’s Israeli partnership region.)
It’s great for both the Israeli teens to get away, and for the local campers to make connections with Israel, says Friedman, plus, it’s another way to create a link between the two partner cities, between San Diego kids and Israel.
“Camp transforms kids,” Gerard says. “And, especially on the west coast, it gives them their Jewish identity. When you’re the minority in your school, camp is always the one thing that allows you to be Jewish….That perpetuates your participation in Hillel, in Young Adult Divisions in the Federation, in the JCCs. It creates a stronger attachment to your community and your religion.”
Camp Mountain Chai is located at 42900 Jenks Lake Road, Angelus Oaks, CA, 92305. Its administrative offices are located at 4950 Murphy Canyon Road, San Diego, CA 92123, in the building housing the Jewish Federation of San Diego County.
For more information, call (858) 499-1330 or visit www.campmountainchai.com. To find out about incentive grants for first-time Jewish campers, visit www.onehappycamper.org.
