"I sat in school and got a degree, I served in Camp Kesem and got an education."
I don't mean to belittle my college professors, the prestige of the university, or undermine the things I learned in class, but ultimately my education has come from experiences-one in particular- far beyond the classroom.
I worked a ton through college, and most of it wasn't on class assignments. Instead, I had a full time job as well as being fairly committed to other responsibilities as a husband, father, Boy Scout leader and too many other things to list I share this because it puts into perspective how vital Camp Kesem was to my education and development. I couldn't let go of it no matter how busy I got or how many commitments I felt already were on my plate. There was always time for CK, even if "time" meant at 11:59pm.
I participated in CK from January 2011 to August 2013, and on my last day I cried, and wept. I cried because I was completely exhausted and I wept because I felt a joy that is best expressed in a moment with no words, just the pure emotion of tears that tell a tale of what has been seen, accomplished, and experienced.
Beyond the tears, what did I gain from CK? In a literal sense, I exchanged dozens of hours a week for a leadership development course on the front lines. I lived and breathed organizational leadership, financial management, event planning, peer coaching, nonprofit management, training and development, and all the other pretty topics you read about in your college business book. Not only that, but I experienced it all while falling in love with over 100 children and university students. It was glorious and as I mentioned already an education beyond anything I could have anticipated day 1 of freshman year.
I love my CK family. I love that while many students spent their hours in the library getting A's, I was out in the streets getting as many C's as possible. C's as in "children whose parent has/had cancer". (Honestly, I got C's in the classroom too, but that is a topic better addressed later.) I love that my last week of summer for 3 years was a 24/7 service activity making magic for kids who needed their childhood back. I love that all I could talk about the first month of the semester was "lemon head" and "Minnie" and "purple star" and "sporty" and "el guapito". While everyone else talked about the relaxing summer, I loved talking about the $2000 donation that came I right before camp. I loved sharing what a camper or a counselor shared about how cancer affected them. I loved remembering (daydreaming in class) what I saw in the eyes of children who lost their mom, their strength, their love, their bold commitment to live life without excuses, their compassion, their pain, and often their tears of sadness but more importantly (and often) of joy.
As you can tell, I am very biased. Camp Kesem wasn't just a service activity, it was a life. A monthly, weekly, daily, even hourly commitment to providing even a moment's worth of strength to families suffering from the cold hearted and evil doer---cancer. I didn't just volunteer to babysit some kids for a week of summer. I lived out each day for over two years planning, preparing, funding, and executing an experience parents desperately wanted their kids to have...fun, despite the circumstances.
Camp Kesem stays with me even though I am past the day to day activities of preparing for camp. There is not a single skill, trait, attribute, bit of knowledge that I have today that didn't pass through the CK filter. I look back on CK and see it as the petri dish for everything good that came of my college years. My concern today, even without being directly responsible, is that as many cancer patients and survivors as possible can get their kids to Camp Kesem.
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