FROM THE DIRECTORS
Giving THANKS this Thanksgiving Season…A Message from our Camp Directors and a Few Friends!
B’Shalom,
Sara and Jared
*** NEW AM AND PM CARE MODEL FOR 2021…MEDFORD+!!!
Introducing Medford+, the all new before and after camp program for families needing additional childcare beyond the traditional JCC Camps at Medford Day. Extend your Medford day by arriving early and/or staying late and experience more of what camp has to offer. In small groups, led by a highly trained and dedicated staff team, campers will get added time at their favorite activities such as mini-golf, sports, splash park, arts & crafts, pavilion games and more! With the option to drop-off/pick-up directly at camp or board the Medford+ bus which will have express access from the JCC in Cherry Hill to/from Medford, Medford+ will accommodate your schedule and childcare needs.
Medford+ offers two convenient pick-up and drop-off times with express bus routes to/from the JCC in Cherry Hill and JCC Camps at Medford.
AM: 7:15AM & 7:45AM
PM (Bus Departs Medford): 5:15PM (5:45 Arrival in Cherry Hill) & 5:45PM (6:15 Arrival in Cherry Hill)
For those dropping off directly in Medford, drop-off will begin at 7:30AM. Pick-up will begin as early as 4:30PM and continue until 6:15PM.
Pricing:
$50/week – AM or PM Option
$80/week – AM and PM
$20 – One Time Drop-In Rate
$25/week – Optional Breakfast Add-On (Options will include bagels, cereal and select hot meals)
Join us and spend bonus time at your summer home with Medford+!
FRIENDSHIP FENCE
Support our award winning JCC Camps at Medford through our Friendship Fence, consisting of 3 foot high wooden silhouettes of campers linked hand-in-hand throughout camp. You can dedicate a silhouette on the fence in honor of the camper or campers in your family, commemorate a special milestone or event or even to remember your own experience at camp. Download the JCC Camps at Medford Friendship Fence form.
STAFF HIGHLIGHT- A BOAT LOAD OF FUN WITH CJ AND ANDY!
This summer, we had the honor of working with a small, dedicated team of staff to provide programming for both Summer Fun and Family Camp Days. At Family Camp, parents got to see our staff team in action for the first time, and the lake was one of the most popular areas to visit thanks to our amazing lake team, CJ DiGironimo and Andy Leach!
CJ DiGironimo has been a proud JCC Camps at Medford staff member since the summer of 2016. He began as lake staff, earned his lifeguard certification and has most recently served as the lake director. His favorite aspects of camp are the fantastic co-workers he’s spent time with who have now become great friends. He gives credit to these coworkers and the camp leadership for helping to him to learn more about himself and to grow as a person. And of course, he’s learned so much from the campers and loves being a part of making their camp experiences that much better! During the school year, CJ is a Junior at Rowan University studying Electrical and Chemical Engineering.
Andy Leach joined the camp staff in 2015 as a Hilltop pool lifeguard. He came to camp thinking it was simply a lifeguard job, but it turned into much more. Thanks to his teaching experience as a swim instructor, he knew teaching was the career path for him. Andy is now an elementary integrative STEM education major at TCNJ. Throughout his years at camp he’s made lasting friendships and built countless connections. “For some, the JCC might just be a summer camp. For me, it’s a place to grow. Whether I’m guarding, teaching or helping at the lake, I feel right at home at the JCC.”
EARN MONEY FOR CAMP!
Did you know that you can earn money toward your child’s camp tuition?! Refer a new family to camp, and if their children attend, earn $100 toward your child’s camp tuition! Help us spread the love of JCC Camps at Medford!
Are you a JCC Camps at Medford super fan? Email Sara at ssideman@jfedsnj.org to learn how you can join our JCC Camps at Medford Parent Ambassadors Program!
JOIN OUR CAMP STAFF FAMILY!
At the end of each season, we are always sad to say goodbye to some staff that are ready to move on from camp. Return letters have gone out, and we are already know that we are looking to fill the following positions. If you are interested, please apply at www.jcccampsatmedford.org.
Open positions:
- Gesher/LIT Director
- Ropes/Adventure Staff
- Sports Staff
- Open Hearts/ Open Doors Advocates
- Lifeguards
- Senior Counselors
WELCOME TO OUR CAMP FAMILY!
The JCC Camps at Medford is excited to welcome the following NEW campers to our camp family for Summer 2021:
Braden Carroll
Logan Coatsworth
Everett Koob
Holden Koob
Zachary Krafchin
Noah Levenberg
Russell Pollock
Julia Romirowsky
Alice Rosenberg
GIBORIM
Because we were not able to use our Judaic curriculum for Summer 2020, we are THRILLED to use it for Summer 2021! This summer’s theme is even more appropriate this year…Giborim/Heroes!
We are honored to work with so many community heroes who have stepped up in the face of great adversity this year. Our community’s doctors, nurses, teachers, mental health workers, supermarket employees and more have worked tirelessly during the Covid-19 pandemic and can all be considered true heroes. We are blessed to have so many of these heroes as part of our camp families and camp staff. Thank you for all you have done and all you will continue to do for our community!
In honor of these community heroes, we will introduce the heroes of our 2021 Judaic curriculum and the values they represent over the next seven months. Check out our heroes for WEEK 1!
JEWISH HERO: Elie Wiesel and SUPER HERO: Spider-Man
CHARACTER TRAITS:
Chesed- Kindness/Humility
Achrayut- Responsibility
For the first week of camp, we will focus on two heroes who teach the imperative values of kindness and responsibility. The first week of camp is a wonderful time to focus on these values. It is important to set the tone of the summer during the first week, and focusing on kindness shows that it is vital to our camp culture. Teaching responsibility during the first week is a great time to explain how we are all responsible for each other, we are responsible for our own behavior, and we are responsible for taking care of camp.
SPIDER-MAN:
Spider-Man is a fictional superhero created by writer-editor Stan Lee. In the stories, Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker were killed in a plane crash. His origin story has him acquiring spider-related abilities after a bite from a radioactive spider; these include clinging to surfaces, shooting spider-webs from wrist-mounted devices, and detecting danger with his “spider-sense”.
When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens behind Spider-Man’s secret identity and with whose “self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness” young readers could relate. Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America and Batman; he thus had to learn for himself that “with great power there must also come great responsibility”—a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man story but later retroactively attributed to his guardian, the late Uncle Ben.
Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes. As Marvel’s flagship character and company mascot, he has appeared in countless forms of media, including several animated and live action television series, comic strips, and in a series of films.
Why does Spiderman get so much love? It’s because he’s simply among the nicest and most self-effacing of superheroes. You may think kindness and humility won’t get you ahead in this world, and sometimes that may appear to be the case. In the short run, it’s often true. But, in the long run, if you are loved and respected by the people around you – and nothing earns love and respect more than sincere kindness and dignified humility – then, at the most critical moments, they will step up to the plate and help you when you need it.
Because of the words “great power,” some people misinterpret the true, deeper meaning behind the much quoted dictum, “With great power comes great responsibility.” But come now, just how “great” is Spiderman’s power, really? Compared to so many vastly more powerful beings in the Marvel and DC Universes?
First of all, the word “great” here doesn’t indicate the level or size of power. It’s the value of the power, and all powers have great value and importance.
Second, Spider-Man very much represents the average person, so what does that mean? It means we all have unique talents and abilities that give us “power.” It is your duty to find them, hone them and use them. Third, the responsibility isn’t just towards others; it’s also towards yourself. People wait endlessly for external events to make them happy. Take charge and take action. Fulfillment in life is your own “responsibility” and you have the “power” to make it happen.
ELIE WIESEL:
Born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet, Romania, Elie Wiesel pursued Jewish religious studies before his family was forced into Nazi death camps during WWII. Wiesel survived, and later wrote the internationally acclaimed memoir Night. He also penned many books and became an activist, orator and teacher, speaking out against persecution and injustice across the globe. Wiesel died on July 2, 2016 at the age of 87.
After the Holocaust, Wiesel studied at the Sorbonne in France from 1948-51 and took up journalism, writing for French and Israeli publications. His friend and colleague François Mauriac, a French Nobel Laureate for Literature, encouraged him to write about his experiences in the camps; Wiesel would publish in Yiddish the memoir And the World Would Remain Silent in 1956. The book was shortened and published in France as La Nuit, and as Night for English readers in 1960. The memoir eventually became an acclaimed bestseller, translated into many languages, and is considered a seminal work on the terrors of the Holocaust.
Wiesel moved to New York in 1955 and became a U.S. citizen in 1963. He met Marion Rose, an Austrian Holocaust survivor, in New York, and they married in Jerusalem in 1969.
Wiesel also became a revered international activist, orator and figure of peace over the years, speaking out against injustices perpetrated in an array of countries, including South Africa, Bosnia, Cambodia and Rwanda. In 1978, Wiesel was appointed chair of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust by President Jimmy Carter. He was honored across the world with a number of awards, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor’s Grand Croix.
Teaching was another of Wiesel’s passions, and he was appointed in the mid-1970s as Boston University’s Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities. He also taught Judaic studies at the City University of New York, and served as a visiting scholar at Yale.
Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The Nobel citation honoring him stated: “Wiesel is a messenger to mankind. His message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity. His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief.”
He founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity with his wife Marion to “combat indifference, intolerance and injustice” throughout the world. The couple had one son, Elisha. Wiesel died on July 2, 2016 at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.