By Melanie Koch
Meet Melanie Koch, satellite director for Youth Unlimited YFC North Perth. Melanie has been bringing Youth Unlimited kids to Muskoka Woods for years through the Muskoka Woods Youth Foundation. We recently asked her what makes the Muskoka Woods/Youth Unlimited connection special and she didn’t hold back! Some partnerships are best explained by the people living them every day, so we’ll step aside and let Mel share, in her own words, what this relationship really means.
I guess I should start by giving you a picture of our youth at Youth Unlimited YFC North Perth. Most of the students we have coming to our drop-in program are coming from really challenging family and community situations. Here’s the breakdown for the 18 kids we brought this summer:
- Two are being raised by grandparents
- In one family, the mom died and dad left the family
- In the other family, mom left, dad struggles with addictions and is unable to care for his children at all
- One has a dad in palliative care for lung disease, in and out of the hospital, and a mom who has been raising children and unable to find a job that allows her to work and care for kids
- Only two of our students who came to Muskoka Woods this summer are in families with both biological parents and siblings
- Two students have parents incarcerated
- Two students have siblings who have been incarcerated prior to age 16
- Twelve of our students are in single parent families
- One student has been almost permanently expelled from academic institutions due to violent and disrespectful reactions toward staff and other students. Last spring he attended about once per week at a form school
- Almost all of them are open about struggling to cope with mental health, school attendance, and a sense of purpose and identity
Our desire in bringing them to camp is for them to experience a Kingdom family culture – belonging in a camp family where they are seen and valued, encouraged and challenged to live values like Jesus teaches. Ultimately we want to see their lives transformed by the love of Jesus.
To get them out of their normal familiar lives and rhythms (with dependence on technological devices and social media, peer influence, and the realities of their regular lives) and have a chance to breathe without all the pressures, be well cared for, and be challenged to live with peers in healthy ways.
Some of the most fulfilling things we see in bringing these students to camp are seeing light in their eyes for the first time, seeing them succeed at things and being proud of themselves for the first time, and facing the unknown and their fears (leaving a parent for a week, or trusting a harness in high ropes, or jumping off the drop tower, or trusting peers to surround them when they’re hurt, etc.), which leaves them with a new sense of who they are, their capabilities, and their belonging.
Almost none of the students we bring to camp really believe they have much to offer the world. At camp, as they see a little more of who they are when they are given opportunities outside of the brokenness of their life stories, they see they can rise above the circumstances they’ve been born into. They are not their childhood story and experience. They are not stuck in the lives and brokenness they’ve known. There is more than their family patterns and community relationships. There is more. And they soak it up like a sponge. They come alive into it.
It is breath-taking to watch happen. It is the most thrilling part of camp for us as a staff team. We watch some of them in the course of a week become different humans.
One student spent this past year in our presence reacting defiantly to staff and volunteers at drop-in, responding defensively and aggressively to peers in almost every interaction. At camp, she blossomed into a very caring and compassionate peer. Encouraging others, looking for ways to help staff. Thriving. On the way home, the look on her face told us she wasn’t happy to be going home. She talked about visiting her dad in jail the very next day. She talked about old relationships with peers that were not healthy or helpful to her. She talked about spending most of her summer in her room on her screen. She talked about not wanting to go back to school in grade 8. She talked about how she felt like a different person at camp. We talked about why home and school are different.
I told her she really is that person she lived at camp, that girl has always been. The one she lives into at home is just someone she has needed to become to protect herself from the hurt and fear she feels. I reminded her she is talking that newness home with her. To remember the things she had learned, and the person that she really is.
She had left a note with her favourite staff person at camp that she hopes to come back to Muskoka Woods but she doesn’t know if she will, because she might “KMS”. So far, she is going to a counsellor, she is coming to our programs twice a week where she knows she belongs and is known. She has only been suspended three times for fighting at school. She has been helping prepare food for her peers at drop-in. She is talking a lot. Her life is different today. Not perfect. But different, because of a week at camp.
We have watched this happen so many times. Here are some more of the things we’ve seen, and the reasons we keep coming back.
A returning student who doesn’t excel at school, has been deeply affected by his family situation in the past three years — his mom leaving and having almost no contact with the kids, his dad struggling to maintain a job, food insecurity, and the threat of housing insecurity constant. He has hardly attended school this year. He is in Grade 8. He doesn’t play sports. He doesn’t have peers that invite him for sleepovers and birthday parties. But when he gets in a kayak, or on a SUP, a wakeboard, or the Wibit, you can’t even believe he is the same young man we see here at home. He excels. He succeeds. He can coach others. While he’s never done these water sports before in his life, something just clicks. He’s a natural.
And something about finding some strength in himself changes him a little. His willingness to solve conflict or receive a challenge from his peers or staff without becoming silent or exploding softens and we can have hard conversations about responsibility and second chances. He is able to actually receive praise with a smile on his face and a belief in himself, like he deserves it. He interacts with peers like he has something to bring to the table, suggesting ideas, and offering help. His Triple AAA Achievement Award for water sports is the only award he has ever received in his life. Honestly.
After hearing about his sister’s experience at camp, one student came to me and asked me to help him learn to read. The level of trust and safety established in a week of camp extended to her family. This past fall, the mom reached out to me, having watched two of her children go to camp, and asked if there is a way we could tutor her to acquire her highschool diploma. While we couldn’t, we put her in contact with the adult learning programs which just so happen to be in our building. This isn’t just about a week at camp. It’s about building healthier humans to build a healthier community and a healthier world. One that Jesus’ followers would call the Kingdom. But for those donors who aren’t believers, a better world is worth it, too!
We have never seen one student without a hoody. Strings pulled tightly around his face. Even when he’s playing dodgeball or basketball in the gym, and sweat dripping off his face, he does not take off his hoody. When his grandma signed him up for camp, and looked over the packing list, she said, “He only wears hoodies.” I responded, “I know – that’s okay! When he’s ready to wear something else he will.”
At camp, we work hard to create an environment of encouragement and safety amongst peers. They also don’t have phones to take pictures and make comments. They also know they can talk about the hard things of life without judgment. This student hardly wore his hoody at camp. After the first day, we saw his hair for the first time. And we saw a smile crack his face that lights up a room. He played at camp. Not just trying to win a game or beat his peers. But he played. The weight of the world gone. He could just be.
One year at camp one of our students was terrified at the top of the Kraken. She spent half an hour at the top. She wanted to go down that slide so badly. But every time she got into the water, the fear made her shake. And she couldn’t do it. We cheered. Then all the other students on the stairs started to cheer her name with us. After several more attempts, her name still ringing out over the whole slide, she got back on, and we reminded to look at what’s true. All of her peers had gone down several times and were back with enormous smiles on their faces. Trust it’s true. She’s going to be okay. And when she’s at the top, don’t listen to the fear. While fear is always healthy, sometimes it’s not telling us the truth. This time, she could see it. On the count of three, we tell fear, it’s not needed right now. We’re good. 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . JOY!
This past summer, this student didn’t return to Muskoka Woods. She was out trying something she’d never done before – lacrosse! And loving it.
This year, when asked, “What were some of the best things you learned at camp this year?” another student mmediately responded with, “I learned I don’t need my phone. It actually sucks my energy” and she is making attempts to limit her phone and become a better influence on it. A few times this fall already she has found herself on chats that become bullying and has confronted her peers. This past week her bold actions led to the suspension of one of her peers for cyberbullying – telling another student to hang herself.
Camp helps students find a little more of themselves than they can find in their everyday ordinary lives.
Sometimes when we’ve been home for a couple months, the staff and volunteers we bring to camp have said, “I wish we could live at Muskoka Woods.” Because we see how life at home seems to drain their hope and dull their potential.
Sometimes when we’ve been home for a day, the kids are already asking us if they can come back next year. In fact, we have students asking us if they can go back to Muskoka Woods as soon as we return. When we open our fall programs in September we are trampled with students asking to go, and friends of the students who went asking if they can go next year. Even though Muskoka Woods happens for us at the end of July and staff spend time at other camps and on vacation through the month of August. It hasn’t left the minds of our students.
Thank you for helping to crack open hard shells of fear, family patterns, anxiety, feelings of low self-worth, dependence on technological devices and social media, and more. Thanks for helping us show students that our faith in Jesus is a whole lot more than just about what happens to people when they die. It’s about being loved until you become a little more whole and safe and real, and then becoming a part of God’s mission to heal the rest of the broken world.
When you give to the Muskoka Woods Youth Foundation, you’re not just investing in a week of camp. You’re changing the world. One little (sometimes ignored and forgotten and overlooked) life at a time.
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Visit the Muskoka Woods Youth Foundation site to give a child the gift of growth, confidence, and unforgettable summer memories.
