One Decade Later, Morton Grove Campers Return

Though she loved swimming and did it nearly every day as an 8-year-old, Lori Andel could never bring herself to go off the diving board.

Now 24, she animatedly recounts the day that changed: When her day camp counselor, Katie Konieczka, swam into the deep end to watch Andel make her first dive.

“I felt great,” Andel said of the relief and pride that washed over her with the cool water. “I felt like I could do anything.”

It’s those kinds of memories that kept bringing Andel back to Morton Grove Park District's summer day camps year after year. Now as an adult, she is a counselor and teacher–among at least a half dozen this summer who have a formative camp tale. Summer camps have been a Morton Grove tradition since 1965.

There is no age limit to the counselors, but they tend to be in their late teens and twenties -- still spry enough to hold their own in capture the flag.

Beginning with 3-year-olds in “Camp Sunshine” and continuing with eighth-graders in “Teen Times,” the Park District’s camps are dispersed throughout the agency's locations and involve age-appropriate games, arts and crafts, sports and field trips.

The activities epitomize the meaning of summer vacation for a lot of Morton Grove children. Campers can sign up for as little as one week or attend all of the sessions that run June 13 to Aug. 4, though Camp S'More will take campers/parents that just can't get enough August 8th - 12th.

“For me, it was Capture the Flag,” said Steven Schutz, 19, recalling the weekly “40 on 40” battles that raged between the campers and counselors to capture and repatriate two white T-shirts that stood in for the flags.

With one-and-a-half football fields of grassy area to run, Schutz said, it was exhausting, dehydrating and “a blast.”

Nostalgia for the exhilaration of Capture the Flag is one of the reasons he is back as a counselor this year.

“It makes me happy,” he said, “because I am reliving one of my favorite memories.”

Liz Goodwin, the recreation supervisor for the Park District, said she’s delighted her “homegrown” counselors have come back to assist a new generation of campers.

“They bring back their enthusiasm and the best of their memories into the program and keep them alive,” she said.

Camp enrollments have been down since the economic downturn started about 2008, but Goodwin is hoping for a rebound this summer.

For several of the boomerang campers, it was a bond with their counselors that made the experience special by providing an older role model to look up to.

“He was just so cool; it’s the only way I can say it,” Matt Doering said of his third-grade counselor at Camp Mor Gro, Joe Knudson.

Knudson always wore a Boston Bruins cap, was good at sports and was really funny, Doering recalled. “I sort of idolized him,” he said.

Now a special education teacher in Glencoe, Doering knows he is the one campers look up to. “It makes me feel good,” he said.

Like Doering, teacher Megan Berebitsky said the camp experience led her to decide she wanted a job working with children.

“It was so much fun when we were campers,” she said. “Every day I say I want them to have as much fun as I did when I was a camper.”

Stephen Joseph attended “Teen Times” and anticipated the annual field trip to the “Enchanted Castle” in Lombard, where the campers played arcade games, laser tag, mini golf and sang karaoke.

As a counselor, he still enjoys the trip, but now he’s responsible for the safety of his young charges.

Just like when he went to summer camp, Joseph said being a counselor offers the promise and challenge of making new friends among his peers.

“It’s just the same,” he said, “only on the other side.”

To get more information about fees, dates and times, visit the camp website or may contact Liz Goodwin, Recreation Supervisor, at 847-965-1200.