Dear NCSY Camp Sports Parents,
I hope that this final note of the summer finds you and your son doing well. As you can imagine, the last few days in camp were a flurry of activity. We celebrated Shabbos with the best ruach of the summer and I do not think any of us wanted it to end. The dining room was buzzing with energy at all three meals and the singing and unity was phenomenal! I am sure your son has shared with you some of what went on in camp, but here is a glimpse of all that occurred at the end of an amazing summer.
On Saturday Night, we had some spare time and did not strike out at our last bowling outing which of course ended with a melave malka and 1:00am pizza!
On Sunday after a morning of learning, we heard from Rabbi Menachem Goldberger, a local rabbi who inspired us with his moving words. Each week we sing the same tune for Lecha Dodi and he is the person who wrote the tune! He told us the story how he created the tune, and we sang and danced it with him. After the dancing and lunch, we headed out to play our last fierce league games to see who makes it into the playoffs! Later that evening we had some down time for open sports, mainly basketball and pickleball, and many teens and advisors took the opportunity to do some 7-11 slurpee runs and hit up their favorite eateries in town.
On Monday after learning groups, we headed into the playoff games. All the teams fought hard to make it to the Kiddush Kup and Toilet Bowl and we saw awesome sportsmanship on the field. After mincha and supper, we went to Skyzone trampoline park and had a blast bouncing off the walls- literally. Trampoline 3 on 3 basketball was a huge hit. The best part was seeing everyone interact with the friendships created in camp. It has been such a great journey seeing how the NCSYers came together as camp progressed to become more than friends, to become brothers. It really was the making of a small family this summer.
On Tueday we had our last fabulous day of learning groups. Shortly after learning, many of the NCSYers who had major learning accomplishments went to David Chus, a local Chinese restaurant, to celebrate. In the early afternoon, the camp went out to play for the Toilet Bowl and Kiddush Kup championships. Following the games, we celebrated with a great banquet and an incredible surprise from the NCSYer inspired Tzitizis Chabura, every NCSYer was given a pair of Tzitis with the Camp Sports logo. The evening came to an end with some final speeches, a video, evaluations, t-shirt presentation and an inspirational “open mike” kumzitz.
This was truly an amazing summer. It was filled with some wonderful trips, intense and fun sports, some great learning, and of course the inspiration and growth that NCSY specializes in. I want to thank all the members of my staff for making this happen as well as you for sharing your son with us for this month.
As we always tell the boys, Camp Sports never really ends – you are always a part of our family as we try and stay in touch with every NCSYer. Please feel free to be in touch if we can be of any assistance to you or your son.
Hopefully, your son will join us or a different NCSY program next summer. Look out for an email to pre-register for next summer and receive a discount!
Until then – have a fabulous rest of your summer! Good shabbos!
All the best,
Rabbi Jon Green