A day spent on the lake paddle boarding with your best friends. A meal where everyone is catching up on their days across the table. An hour spent reading books, making friendship bracelets, and playing board games in your bunk.

Now imagine if technology was added: A day spent on the lake worried about the reception you’d get on the water to post your Instagram photo. A meal where everyone is on their phones, catching up on a day of social media. An hour spent watching videos or playing games on your phone, pulled away from the world around you.

Summer camp – there’s no app for that. And we’d like to keep it that way.

We are proud of the fact that we give our campers and staff a chance to truly unplug during the summer and spend weeks screen free. An important part of our mission is to help teach our campers that “friend” is not a verb but a noun – and give them the skills to make lifelong friends at camp and outside of it as their life journeys continue.

This summer, we are making extra efforts to unplug our staff as well – encouraging everyone from our directors to our cabin counselors to find creative ways of communication to each other in order to allow us all to detach from phones altogether.

We look forward to giving your camper the opportunity to make friends in real time, enjoy the nature of Bruceville, and truly unplug. Thank you for supporting us in our technology-free mission this summer.