Welcome to Camp Tawonga, A Taste of Camp!

During our entire week of intensive staff training and team building, we have been excitedly awaiting the moment when the campers arrive, and it’s finally here! As campers came off the bus one by one today, our enthusiastic staff sang a Tawonga favorite to welcome them to our Camp community:

“We welcome you to Camp Tawonga, mighty glad you’re here. We’ll send the air reverberating with a mighty cheer. We’ll sing you in, we’ll sing you out! For you we’ll raise a mighty shout! Hail, hail, the gang’s all here, Camp Tawonga welcomes you. One, a-two, a-one, two, three, four!”

The lyrics really show how genuinely thrilled our staff is for these children to become a part of this warm, supportive and inclusive Tawonga community.

This first day of Camp is all about getting the campers settled in to their bunks with their new bunk mates and amazing counselors, all living together in cabins. Camp Tawonga’s bunks are organized into five units, from youngest to oldest: Carmel, Galil, Eilat, Haifa and Chalutzim. Four of these units are locations in Israel, and our oldest unit, Chalutzim, means “pioneers.”

For this session’s first dinner, campers ate a well-rounded meal of chicken, rice, salad and broccoli, made with love by our kitchen staff. After the meal, our song leaders introduced one of Camp’s all-time classic songs, Country Roads.

“Country Roads, take me home to the place I belong. Camp Tawonga, California. Take me home, down country roads.”

The energy and mood tonight has been incredibly uplifting and exciting. So many of our staff were once Tawonga campers themselves and have been particularly looking forward to providing the kind of memorable experiences for the campers that they once enjoyed.

Check out some photos below, and tune back in tomorrow for more from A Taste of Camp!