Soccer, Hockey

Kickball, Pickleball

The alma, set to Classic Rock

A full debate about the merits of standardized testing in schools

The all-camp relay

Rope Burn

If that list only half made sense, hang on. It’s about to make a lot more. And if you read it and started nodding, you already know exactly what Color War is.

Color War comes at the very end, the last full weekend of the summer.

By now these kids have been here almost two months. They’ve got a place they love and a bunch of people they care about. Color War is where all of it seems to hit camp all at once.

Even the breakout, before a single point is scored, is one of the biggest moments of the summer for them (and for us).

How the (Long) Weekend Goes

Around 9:15 on Thursday night, it was dark and quiet, like camp usually is at that time. Until a dump truck rolled into camp launching fireworks out of the back.

The whole camp ran after it as it drove through, Adventure Dave walking behind in a costume with a pair of giant road flares.

Then everyone sprinted down to the Hollow. A spotlight hit a group of people in morph suits standing in for the head coaches, and a 25-foot pallet castle went up into a bonfire.

Does it sound over the top? It was. That’s sort of the idea.

And I know we sent this IG post out last week, but it’s worth going round 2, because it captures the energy behind these moments.

​Watch it here​

(Shout out to Geof and the crew. It pays to have a great team.)

Then each camp splits into teams, Maroon and Gray, Green and Gold, and for four days it’s blocks of games and blocks of rallies, morning and night.

The games are what you’d guess.

Soccer, frisbee, volleyball, archery, all the usual camp stuff.

The loudest is the oldest campers playing hockey in the gym. The whole team packs in and treats it like the “high-stakes” match it is. It’s intense in the best ways.

But between the games, the kids are learning their team’s songs, twice a day, every day. The Fight. The Cheer. The Comic. And, of course, The Alma. The Fight gets everyone hyped, the Alma is the sentimental one, and the Comic go for laughs.

And the seniors spend a full day researching a side of a real debate, then argue it in front of everyone, rebuttals and all. They don’t get the side they agree with. They get assigned one, like a real debate team. To my knowledge, we’re the only camp that does this.

It’s all part of the same connective tissue.

A kid pouring everything into a hockey game and a kid pouring everything into a pickleball match and a kid pouring everything into a comic song and a kid pouring everything into the relay and a kid pouring everything they have into a debate about standardized testing are putting in the exact same effort.

To them, it all counts the same.

It’s for Each Other

The kids go so much harder than they would on a normal day. And not just at the sports, at all of it.

They want to win, badly. But the winning isn’t really the point.

They love Color War because they want to win for their head coach, a counselor they love, and their captains, the older kids they look up to. And because their friends care, so they do too.

Nobody teaches a kid to care like this. They just catch it from each other.

You’ll see the photos this week. Kids sprinting around, fireworks, faces mid-game.

That part’s easy to catch.

What the photos miss is that the same thing runs underneath all of it: the soccer and the songs and the debate, a whole camp of kids going all out, mostly for each other.

Because they care.

You got this,

Jack

PS - Sounds wild to say this, but registration is already open for next summer. I know, I can't believe it either.

​Register for Summer 2027​

If you’ve got any questions about any of this, hit reply here or text/ call me at 585-451-5141.

114 Eagle Pond Rd, Wilmot, NH 03287
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