According to the temperatures in these parts, as well as the calendar, summer is here! With that comes the annual migration of our children and teens to summer camps, be they at Soyuzivka, campgrounds of the Ukrainian American Youth Association and the Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, or other venues, such as Bobriwka in Connecticut or All Saints Camp of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. in Pennsylvania.
How lucky we are to have these opportunities and venues!
You know, we take a lot for granted when we send our kids to our Ukrainian camps. And, in many ways, that is good thing. After all, we trust the folks who are organizing and running these activities – they’ve been doing it successfully for years! And there is a comfort level that comes with these being such an important component of our Ukrainian community experience. Take a moment, however, to think about all the work that is done – even before you begin packing your kids off to camp – to make these camps possible. There are countless hours of planning and scheduling, and searching for camp directors and staff. Furthermore, many of these organizers and administrators of camps are volunteers who do what they do simply because they want to give back to our community.
Sometimes we are quite nonchalant, disregardful really, when it comes to the summertime staffers at our summertime venues. We take them for granted, yet these are the folks who implement the summer programs that benefit our kids and, in the case of the littlest campers, are on call every hour of every day. Many of them are former campers themselves, ex-kids who grew up at these camps and now want to pay it forward, to give the next generation a similarly rewarding and enriching summertime experience. Some, it should be noted, are volunteers, while others are paid (or should we say “underpaid”?). In any case, they are deserving of our gratitude, our support and our admiration.
At the Soyuzivka Heritage Center, there is yet another interesting, and unique, facet of our Ukrainian summers. This is the time when, as has been the case for the past several years (eight or nine years, according to those in the know), groups of university students arrive from Ukraine to work at Soyuzivka during the summer season as wait staff, kitchen staff, groundskeepers, in housekeeping, at the snack bar and in the Main House office. In fact, the first group of these young people was already at Soyuzivka at the time of UNA Seniors Week in mid-June. Since then, more have arrived and there are now 23 students from all regions of Ukraine, including Russian-occupied Crimea, at work all around Soyuzivka. We wish them a wonderful experience! (And we hope many of our readers will get a chance to meet these students at Soyuzivka.)
Collectively, these summertime workers are the key to a successful Ukrainian summer season. We truly are fortunate to have these exceptional people working for us and making our summers special.