At GFC, Spring is both on the calendar and in the air. You can see it in the explosion of wild flowers in all of our fields at Greene. Blue Bonnets and Indian Paintbrushes are splashed like God’s art projects over the camp grounds. With Passover right around the corner, it is the time for rebirth and growth. Of course, Greene Family Camp is joining in the spirit of the season.
We have completely reorganized, replanted, and re-irrigated our garden. Ron Bernstein, the famous farmer of Kibbutz Yahel, has made an early trip to camp. He is out there now, working with Rose, Andres, Frances, and our entire camp staff to replenish the soil, plant the vegetables, and quintuple (that’s five times!) the number of trees in our orchard. Ron will be returning this summer with his family. Yaheli is a long-time GFC camper and his wife, Gila, is the head chef of the Kibbutz and will be working developing new menu items for our campers and staff.
We are also “planting” a brand-new section of our faculty housing motel. We have excavated the land, brought in the foundation materials, and are on track to finish just in time for the summer. The new facility will have 6 new private bedrooms and will be used to provide more space for our summer faculty. The number of your rabbis, cantors, educators, youth advisors, and others has grown over the years, and we can now accommodate almost everyone.
And let’s not forget our new skate board arena – no that is actually the small swimming pool. It is being completely renovated with new plaster, paint, and tiles. Next year, we will treat the big z-pool to the same makeover.
In addition, we are about to prepare for our incredably popular new STEaM program (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). The expanded program will take place in an expanded facility – The Fishbowl (next to the zip line). We are ready to welcome back the robots and the rockets into a bigger room because of the number of campers involved.
We are very very busy this time of year, not only with the projects that will physically prepare the camp for the best season ever, but we are right in the thick of it – Our registration season is still in high gear as we fill the final beds in camp. The GFC team is finding all of the final members of the incredible staff who will make the summer fantastic. Stefani and Andrew are leaving for Israel to train and orient our Israeli staff team. We are reviewing the menu, the medical forms and the daily schedule.
We are really getting excited and we hope that you are, too. Spring has sprung, and GFC is sprinting towards Opening Day!