Director Jud's Blog

The first full week of fourth session here at Stone Mountain Adventures Teen Summer Camp was absolutely amazing! Our week was filled with numerous fun activities ranging from hiking to biking to canoeing. We sent two overnights out, visited the Huntingdon County Fair, and went disco roller skating in State College!

Yesterday we celebrated the half way point of our final session by having an “All Camp Day”.  All Camp Day here at Stone Mountain Adventures allows us the opportunity to relax and enjoy each other’s company while also giving back to our local community and reflecting on all the awesome experiences we’ve had over the course of the last week.

The day started off great with bagels and donuts for breakfast and a nice chill morning around the farm.  Campers then participated in our “All Camp Day” bunk clean up, which includes campers creating skits to present to the bunk inspectors.  This week’s theme, “If SMA was run by campers”, produced some hilarious skits and we were impressed by clean shelves and sparkling floors. 

Following cabin clean up, we all headed off for an afternoon of service projects in our local community. Campers played bingo at Sherlysburg Retirement Home, helped maintain the Allagrippis biking trails at Raystown Lake, held a lemonade stand in State College for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a national charity that supports pediatric cancer, and helped with a forestry project around camp. 

Following a great afternoon of service, we all met up at Raystown Lake for our All Camp Day BBQ and the evening was filled with laughter and good food! At the end of the night we had a special evening meeting out at the lake where campers learned about SMAM and were given secret friends.  SMAM, or Stone Mountain Activity Masters, is a program here at Stone Mountain Adventures to encourage campers to try a wide variety of activities and push themselves to try new things.  By completing 9 out of 10 specified activities, campers can be awarded SMAM and receive a special Stone Mountain Adventures water bottle.  After evening meeting, we all returned to camp for candlelight meetings.  Candlelight meetings are a SMA tradition in which we all get the opportunity to reflect on our experiences over the last week and look forward to what’s coming next.

After an amazing first week and jam packed All Camp Day, we are looking ahead to another awesome week here at SMA. We have our second round of overnights heading out this afternoon, one wakeboarding overnight at Raystown Lake and one canoeing overnight on the Little Juniata River, and all of the campers are getting the opportunity to do laundry today! We are looking forward to a lot more great activities this week, including the SMA Dance, White Water Rafting, and the SMA Talent Show! Stay posted for more updates and photos in the days to come!