Many Hands
We talk about “Aha Moments” at staff training and with campers every summer.
I had a big one last Saturday when I hosted a group of volunteers from the Burnt Hills Ballston Lake Rotary who came out to help prep some of the wood components for a new batch of tables and benches we’ll need this summer as we increase our capacity by about forty campers.
More campers is great! More campers means more of the experiences camp believes so much in, more participants, more jokes, more perspectives. It also means more infrastructure. More cabins, more bunks, more plates, more swords. We knew it meant a lot more work and we are excited to do it.
Well, I was excited.
Sanding is rightly regarded as one of the more tedious tasks involved in furniture making. I reached out for help after I spent about six hours with my battery powered orbital sander and had made it through about 7% of the table top components.
Enter Peter, Mike, Ken, Gregg and Bill from the BHBL Rotary Club with their drum sanders and happy-to-help attitudes. They had some coffee and donuts and got to work and in about three hours they were done with what I was considering an insurmountable amount of sanding.
Many hands had made light work.
We had a beer and they told me to call them when the weather warms up a bit and it’s time to apply the polyurethane and assemble the tables.
The Aha Moment came around when I thought about the term “volunteer opportunity”. Why were the guys willing to come out to do that work? It’s more than altruism, more than something to do with buddies on a Saturday morning. There was a strong sense of community that morning to come together and accomplish a goal. They get excited like I do about working hard to curate camp as a space for the special stuff that happens during the summer. They believe in camp and want to be a part of it, their way of doing so this time was to come out and deal with hand vibrations and wood dust for a few hours.Thank you to the volunteers who came out last Saturday and for every volunteer who has helped camp get to where it is today. We’re so grateful to groups like the BHBL Rotary Club, Saratoga Shredders, Rebuilding Saratoga Together, and eagle scout project leaders, Artist in Residence program members and camper families for putting in the work to better our space so more people can benefit from it.
I think back to the property when I first saw it in 2019 and reflect on the amount of work that has gone into it. Eight new cabins, a refurbished water distribution system, tearing down old buildings board by board, and the renovation of a nearly two hundred year old farm house. All made possible through the hard work of volunteers and donors.
People coming together and contributing is the only thing that makes Stomping Ground possible.
More often than not I’m incredibly overwhelmed by the to do lists this time of year. The window between snow on the ground and drop off day is small and there’s always a ton to do. There are things we need to do and things we want to do and only so much time to do it. But with the help of volunteers, the amount of things we get to do greatly increases.
We’re hosting a volunteer weekend on April 20th with an array of projects in mind to match any and all skill levels.
We’ll be trailmaking, painting, organizing the Barn and the maker space, cleaning the kitchen, packing first aid kits, and so much more. We also need help with concrete pads and would love to upgrade the fence at our waterfront.
The opportunity is to meet other amazing helpful people and be a part of our community. The opportunity is to give your time, share your skills and learn new ones, and leave your mark on at camp.If you or anyone you know might be interested in volunteering this spring, have projects of your own you’d like to see at camp, or are curious about the camp property in any way please reach out.
Thank you again for volunteering and making it happen!
George Clay has been at camp since the very beginning. He’s held nearly every job at camp from EMT to Waterfront Director and now is in charge of all our Facilities. We love George for the many hats he wears, but he’s likely most famous for being the Man With The Milk.
