What Lies Outside of your Comfort Zone is Growth.
By Joey Baez & Liam Macleod
This blog is a reflection of the year 2020 and a look towards the future for Camp IHC as we actively stick true to our values of integrity and our mission of being dedicated to human development.
2020 has been a year like no other.
A global pandemic disrupted the entire world, one that our society was barely ready to deal with. And with any major crisis, we’ve started to see a knock-on effect of mass unemployment, poverty and growing inequality.
We saw wildfires rage across Australia, America and the Amazon. We lost millions of acres of land and billions of animals. The red flags of global warming were once again being waved in front of our eyes, if of course, you are willing to see it.
We witnessed political elections that challenged our country. We’re fighting with fake news, fake tweets and a society that’s experiencing a new wave of social dilemma.
Meanwhile the already long list of murdered unarmed black men and women continued to grow. Their names: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade to name but a few, sparked a growing voice for a movement that chooses to stand up against social injustices and demand change.
‘I can’t breathe’
2020 has been uncomfortable, it has taken us all out of our comfort zone. As a small business Camp IHC has been uncomfortable with all of these events in some way or another.
As a traditional sleepaway summer camp, we’ve always been proud to be able to provide a space for our children and our staff to just, breathe… a place to escape the realities of the real world and feel safe.
Read Lauren’s article A Space for Innocence here:
In a year where children needed a place like summer camp, it sadly became the first year that didn’t allow us to fully open our doors in 80 years. At times we cried, we felt anger, frustration, sadness and at times we even felt scared.
But if 2020 has shown us anything, it’s that hope can come from the people and places that you wouldn’t expect.
‘Daddy changed the world’ — Gigi Floyd
‘I have learned you are never too small to make a difference.’ — Greta Thunberg
“For all those finding it difficult: the sun will shine on you again and the clouds will go away” — Captain Tom Moore
‘I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self.’ — Elliot Page
As an organization and as full-time people, we each have collective and individualistic values and beliefs that make us who we are, and this year certainly challenged our values and beliefs more than any other year. While we cried, we watched, when we were angry, we listened, when we were scared, we learned and when we were collected, we acted.
Camp IHC met as a team to speak about all that is going on in this crazy but beautiful world and collectively made a decision to use this time to move Camp IHC forward into a better tomorrow. We wanted to find exciting ways to innovate, grow and unite for the greater good.
This year took us out of our comfort zone but we have a saying…
“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. And if you’re not changing, you’re not growing.”
What lies beyond our comfort zone, is growth. We wanted to grow.
We assembled teams to take a deeper dive into the practices of IHC. The focus of these teams was to look at what we are doing as a camp and find ways to strengthen our place as a camp that was committed to action, not just words.
In the summer, following the Black Out Tuesday IG campaign, Camp IHC pledged to Take Action: We Watched, Listened, Sought to Understand, Relate and Act. We have since kick started our own Diversity & Inclusion Team to help fulfill our promise of being active agents and racial and social change.
The goal of this team is to improve diversity and inclusion in our community. The Diversity & Inclusion team has chosen to actively address issues relating to Racism, Mental & Physical Health, Cultural backgrounds, LGBTQ+ issues & Bullying.
In January 2021 our new Going Green Team are going to take our efforts to the next level, actively look at new ways that Camp IHC can become greener, cleaner and more efficient.
This year, when we were navigating the lost summer at camp, we recognized how lucky we were just to have simple things like hot food on our table. We reached out to our local community to see what we could do to help and give back, we were inspired. In November we created a dedicated Community Outreach Team to explore new ways for IHC to be a leader in the communities around us. From Food Banks to Toy Drives, we’ll be sharing more ways we’re giving back and staying engaged in 2021!
We also understood that COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere soon. Armed with new data and utilizing every possible resource available to us we launched our COVID Task Force in early 2020. The COVID team continues to look at every logistical and operational procedure and protocol that IHC has to consider to operate in a pre-vaccinated world and to make sure for summer 2021 and beyond we are ready and we can help others in our industry be successful.
We’re not sitting on the sidelines.
We pledged to take action that’s more than joining a trending social media post. We will be sharing our journey with you. We will be sharing what we are doing and ways we can work together to better ourselves within these different focus areas.
We know this journey will have its challenges and we are not scared to face them. We welcome the chance to make ‘our camp, our community, our family’ a strong, supportive and healthier one for future generations of campers who will make Camp IHC home.
And when we can’t find all the answers, we’ll keep asking.
