Week five at MKN brought a lot of new faces. Our Mini Mak and Second Session campers arrived.
Mini Mak campers are young, excited future campers who are ready to try camp for a week before a longer session next summer. They quickly made themselves at home learning all about MKN, and many even decided to stay for the remainder of this summer! Our second-session campers dove into all of the wonderful activities and programs, while the full-session (seven-weekers) were already well settled into life at camp but excited to welcome in new friends and tell them about all camp and upcoming events.
Probably the most notable event of the week was our annual attempt at a World Record. This year’s endeavor was for the “Longest all-ages beach volleyball game in history.” We began on Tuesday night, and every camper got their moment to step onto the sand and help keep the play going. The staff took the overnight and early morning shifts, and when someone wasn’t playing, they were cheering the others on. After 28 hours of bumping, setting, and spiking, we accomplished our mission and broke the World Record. The MKN campers will always know they are a small part of the history books! Naturally, we all celebrated with a rowdy dining hall dance party.
The weather was very hot for much of the week, so the kids had more water play than ever. Pool noodles and our lake slide-and-swim saw a lot of action! Our tournaments went on as well – this week we had golf, soccer, hoops, hockey, chess and archery competitions.
Unique summer travel began for our older campers. The Algonquins – our second oldest age group, left for a six-day trip to California. They spent their first day hitting the waves at Laguna Beach. That night, they went to the Los Angeles Angels baseball game, where they were treated like VIPs. They got to go on the field for batting practice and the pre-game warm-ups and meet some players! It was Mike Trout night! They’ll spend the rest of the trip touring UCLA, visiting Disneyland, the Grammy Museum, Venice Beach, and more! And of course, a trip to Cali is not complete without a meal at In-N-Out Burger.
One notable evening activity this week was “Beat the Senecas.” The Senecas are kind of like celebrities here, so all of the kids look up to them – and also love competing with them. For this event, each Seneca picked a different special talent they have and the TJC campers got to walk around to stations and “challenge” that Seneca to a specific competition. The special-talent challenges included basketball, volleyball, Tramp Ball, Pictionary, football, tennis, pop-a-shot, firebuilding, dance-off, and more! The younger guys loved showing off their stuff at the activities they excelled at, and the Senecas were, in fact, “beaten” a few times!
We also held our second Lake Swim of the summer, and this time our TJC were allowed to enter and do a “half” Lake Swim, so they could challenge themselves as well. As a reminder, our Lake Swim is a 3/4 mile across “The Stockbridge Bowl”. While this is an awesome event for kids to push themselves in, MKN also does this event for a good cause. We’ve partnered with SCOPE (Summer Camp Opportunities Promote Education) this summer, whose mission is to provide children from financially disadvantaged families with access to not-for-profit overnight camps. For every camper that participates in any of our Lake Swims this summer (including the half swim and even cheering from the sidelines), MKN is donating to SCOPE. If parents would like to donate as well, they can do so here.
Parents – don’t forget – our MKNTotem.com has a daily newsletter – “MKN Today,” pictures, videos and more. Be sure to create an account and read/see all the happenings at camp!
