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LETTER FROM SAM KENNEDY
In addition to a full-page advertisement from a new local dairy named Round Top, the 1926 Kieve Annual featured the following in an editorial:
We have been living in a unique environment—an environment of truth. Here we have been honest, honest to others and true to ourselves. There is no place at Kieve for artificiality. We have come down to the fundamentals.
It’s hard to describe Kieve Wavus Education’s uniqueness, but those fortunate enough to have lived it understand. This summer highlighted for me the two elements that set this place apart: 1. There is no room for artificiality here. At KWE, we’re all safe to be, to find, and to get to know our truest selves. And 2. We learn the most when we ditch our creature comforts and venture into the wilderness.
These summers are a gift, more precious now in a world that bombards our senses and hoards our attention with an endless onslaught of emails, texts, social media posts, and other messages flashing across the screens from which we cannot hide. We need this — KWE’s unique environment of truth — to boil away the noise and the clutter and get back to authenticity, honesty, and substance.
Anyone who’s witnessed air guitar, a round of announcements after a camp meal, or a raft skit at G-swim can see how this community’s embrace of any and every individual — camper, counselor, or director! — willing to offer up their truest self then empowers that person to take a risk. These risks give no power to artificiality; they are celebrated, shared, and formative.
It is in the wilderness where the most unfettered personal growth happens. Time moves differently when we’re set apart from the rest of the world, relying on only ourselves and our cabinmates to overcome the physical challenges of the natural world. We lift one another (and our canoes, wanigans, and packs) up above the miles of muck and mosquitoes of the Mud Pond Portage or the rocks and roots of the 100-Mile Wilderness. We sling tarps from trees and huddle together beneath them out of the driving rain on Chamberlain Lake. We cook quesadillas over campfires in Mt. Blue State Park.
And we love it all. These pleasures we work for resonate longer and more deeply than those always at our fingertips when we return to the instant gratification of the real world.
It’s hard to measure, but this summer might have been the busiest — and smoothest — yet for KWE’s wilderness tripping department. Lily Tromanhauser, Garrett Phillips, and their excellent teams of tripping directors safely returned 1,172 Kieve and Wavus campers from 153 wilderness trips totalling 1,051 days in the woods. Nearly 100 Maine Trails campers backpacked a combined 17,280 miles on the Appalachian Trail.
In August, I received an email from a New Jersey teacher who hiked the 100-Mile Wilderness this summer (the last portion of the Appalachian Trail) and met six Wavus and Kieve Maine Trails groups along the way. He wrote:
It’s clear you are building a strong and devoted community to the love of nature.
Some of your campers helped me untangle the paracord that was caught on a tree limb when I tried to hang my bear bag. In their free time, some of them helped an MATC trail crew.
I have no doubt that your mission is helping them grow into more confident, compassionate, friendly, and grounded individuals. I didn’t expect to meet all these kids on the rugged stretch to Katahdin, but I’m glad I did.
As a high school English teacher of sophomores and juniors, I will return to school in September and share the goodness I learned.
The world beyond Damariscotta Lake can be so fraught and complex, especially for kids who spend the other 48 weeks of the year balancing the high-expectations of school and society while dependent on technology where every moment can be subject to judgment.
I’m always amazed by the wisdom our oldest campers share around the closing campfire on the final night of camp. They’re transformed in these unique environments in the Maine woods where they disconnect from the grind and connect with their peers and role models; where they grow the most and recognize their truest selves.
Camp is a privilege, and all who enjoy it have a responsibility to export camp’s fundamentals back out into the rest of the world.
Gratefully,
Sam Kennedy
President & Chief Executive Officer