🤝 CNIB and Manitou

Friday Night Fireside is our favourite evening of the week. Some of our older campers were discussing with the directors that everyone knows at fireside to embrace it, and truly as our poem says be their best self.

This past week, we took thirty of our oldest campers, the Leaders-in-Training (LITs), to Canadian National Institute for the Blind’s Lake Joseph Camp. The LITs went on this incredible day trip to learn how people with different abilities function and enjoy their summers at camp and also how to adapt many of the activities we do at Manitou for people with different needs.

Later in the week, our LITs welcomed campers from the CNIB Lake Joe camp to participate in activities around Manitou. Our LITs used their skills they had learned previously to work with kids who are visually impaired, and it was awesome to see friendships being formed. Their visiting campers got to try their hand at Adventure Park, wheel at Pottery, and they even went to our Archery range! We think our LITs are going to be awesome when they return as CITs next year, and we can’t wait to see their leadership skills in action next summer. Please watch the short video below for our CNIB and fireside recap.

Of course, fireside has the wonderful candle ceremony and campers spoke about our theme, “Grow through what you go through”. Our junior campers had much to say and here are some favourite quotes from the night:

“An example is at the beginning things started off rough in our cabin and then we all though it wouldn’t be better but we started to grow together and  now look back on how our cabin has come together and we have become better people”

“When I first came to Canada  all the way from Spain I was so but people welcomed me into the awesome community that Manitou is.  At Home in Spain Manitou Is a very special thing and is so important to my family.”

“Our theme of the summer is to learn from past experiences. An example of this is I signed up for wakeboard  and at first was really nervous  but with the help of the staff I was able to get up,   and I learned to trust others to help me and grow through what I go through.”

I guess we all could learn from our campers this summer!