Outdoor Survival Games @ Camp Wing!
Stockade @ Camp Wing
Our most recent trip to Camp Wing with teams from Harlem Lacrosse was an absolute success!
Camp Wing is located on 200 beautiful acres of land in Duxbury, MA. Just about 30 miles outside of the city, Camp Wing is truly an escape to nature and has so many great activities to offer. Central within the camp is a pond that yields great fishing - especially when done with bamboo poles and some old bread as bait! There is a pretty extensive trail system throughout the camp that works its way all around the pond and has outlets at places like the Stockade (pictured above), giant pavilions, swimming pools, neighborhoods of cabins and a ton of fun activities.
Many of the Harlem Lacrosse students who were on this trip with us have actually already been to Camp Wing on overnight trips with their respective schools, so they were particularly excited to get the chance to go back and spend the day at this awesome location.
The Elevate Youth team decided that since the Harlem Lacrosse players are used to competition, we’d try to bring out their fun competitive spirit for this trip as well - but with a twist: We hosted the first, but likely not the last, Elevate Youth Outdoor Survival Games! Coming from several different schools, there were 23 kids on this trip and a whole host of adults and coaches ready to take on all the challenges with their teams.
We set up 4 different challenges for everyone consisting of fishing, shelter building, fire building and a scavenger hunt on the nature trails throughout the camp. I honestly cannot say which activity was the overall favorite because every one of these challenges was a huge hit among the kids and adults alike.
Fishing on the pond
We stopped for a much needed lunch break in the stockade complete with lots of food, laughter, and bringing all the teams back together. Everyone headed back out after lunch for their final challenge before a big group bonfire featuring hot drinks, s’mores, and even Banana boats which were definitely a favorite around the campfire (thanks Cam!)
Campfire banana boats (seriously delicious)!
We also decided that instead of keeping kids broken into groups by the same teams they're already with everyday, we would mix all the groups together. There is always the potential when that happens that maybe kids won’t get along or like their teammates, but not for these kids. They are all seriously great sports and got along so well with so many new people. And on the walk back to the bonfire at the end of the day, one of the kids told me that now he's going to miss his new teammates so when we do another trip he requested we use the same groups. That really made my day and shows how good these kids are at adapting and taking on challenges.
The Harlem Lacrosse coaches are doing incredible work and I’m really thankful to them for passing on such important lessons, problem solving skills, values, and for encouraging the best energy from these kids.
Thank you so much to Camp Wing staff for generously hosting us and providing such an amazing location for these kids to have another awesome trip. We will definitely see you all again!