For the last 50 years, Alford Lake Camp has provided unique extended trip opportunities for many of our oldest campers. On these adventures, they embrace new experiences, working as a team, group routines, and physical discomfort as they adjust to the demands of the trip and their gear. Campers have triumphed through group challenges and return from these trips with deeper friendships, a renewed willingness to push themselves in new directions, and lifelong memories.
Our in-camp campers watch these older campers as they depart for their summer long adventures, as they embark upon their own adventures in camp. Our days at ALC are filled with time spent with friends, daring to try new activities, and simply enjoying the joy of summer days in Maine. ALC’s in-camp, choice-based programming is immensely valuable for emerging young women because it is rich in individualized personal growth and development. In the short-term, the value of a camper’s time in camp is seen through the increased confidence and skills she brings home at the end of the summer. However, the depth of the ALC experience continues to emerge as she embraces new challenges in activities, friendships, and leadership in camp each summer. How awesome it is that each camper has her own unique ALC journey, and that she follows in the footsteps of the generations of ALC women who have had the courage to impact the greater world around them.
At the end of the summer, the whole community welcomes our Global Challenge Trips back to ALC. We sit in quiet awe and respect as each trip rejoins the larger ALC community, knowing that these emerging young women once sat watching their predecessors re-enter. For our younger campers, it serves as a moment of inspiration, as they look to the adventures they may one day have for themselves while simultaneously appreciating their own summer adventures and the journey they have taken at camp that particular summer.
On those final days of each summer, we appreciate having the entire ALC community together again as we share tales of summer adventures. We see the ALC summer family supporting and cheering on the growth that has taken place for each camper and counselor. We know that each ALCer has followed her own path and leaves camp with new skills, friends, and fond memories.
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