The Best Summer of Their LIves

By Jess Clarke

January 29, 2009

There’s a new way for kids to have the best summer of their lives, and it starts in June in Pennsylvania. Whitewater rafting, hiking, mountain biking, Ultimate Frisbee, talent show? Sure, but expect more from the Wellspring Pennsylvania camp. Kids will have an opportunity to transform their lives by losing weight, becoming fit and adopting a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

The camp is among three new facilities to open this summer that are part of Wellspring Camps, weight-loss programs for children and families around the United States and in Australia, Canada and England. Wellspring Vancouver and Wellspring Florida also will open for their first season this summer. Wellspring Academies in California and North Carolina are schools for teens and college students.

Wellspring Pennsylvania, to be located at Washington & Jefferson College near Pittsburgh, will offer sessions of four weeks, six weeks and eight weeks from June 21 to Aug. 15. The coed camp can accommodate about 40 kids ages 11-18 at a time. The cost is $6,190 for four weeks, $7,990 for six weeks and $9,190 for eight weeks.

Once kids finish a session at Wellspring Camps, “For the most part, it just makes the campers much happier. You’re improving everything about their life,” says Jane Morrison, Wellspring Pennsylvania director.

Many campers have never been physically active. “Once they try it, they realize they do enjoy it. A lot of kids get especially motivated by the physical activities they’re doing,” says Morrison, former director of Wellspring California and program supervisor at Wellspring UK.

There will be plenty of activities at Wellspring Pennsylvania. “We’ve got some great facilities on the campus,” Morrison says. Amenities include an indoor pool and track, gym, fitness suite, tennis and basketball courts and indoor volleyball court. The camp also will offer yoga, strength training, aerobics, dodge ball, kickball and a campfire each session.

Campers will participate in the Wellspring level system, in which they can move up a level each week and earn rewards. The kids, assessed weekly, walk at least 10,000 steps a day and keep a self-monitoring journal about their food consumption.

Wellspring Pennsylvania staff will include a behavioral coach, clinical staff, a personal trainer, medic and nutrition and culinary instructors. “We as a staff have a great lot of experience working with young people in the outdoors,” Morrison says. “We do a lot of team-building activities and icebreakers in the first few days.”

The team-building pays off.

“The bonds and the friendships they develop at Wellspring do seem to be more than at other camps. I think it’s because they have something strong in common. They’re sharing the experience, and they’re losing the weight,” Morrison says. “I enjoy seeing smiles on people’s faces, and Wellspring puts smiles on people’s faces.”

Including parents’ faces.

“We have such a strong connection with the families,” Morrison says. “When the families arrive to pick up their kids, to see their faces and the amazement there… To be able to witness these kids not only getting healthy but getting that confidence, getting that self-esteem, seeing the value in themselves is just amazing.”

Wellspring Camps help bring out kids’ potential.

“It’s just finding the right person to find that potential, the right mentor, teacher, to guide them to the things they’re capable of,” Morrison says. “A lot of times with people who are overweight, they feel that nobody really understands.”

Morrison felt that way herself sometimes as a child with dyslexia in England. “I tried very hard in school but a lot of times only pulled average marks. I was told and had written reports that I needed to try harder. I had one report that I was lazy,” she recalls. “I had no idea what my potential was.”

She explored her wide-ranging potential as a radio operator in the British navy in the 1980s and ‘90s, a canal boat driver on England’s Thames River for tourist excursions and a fishing observer in the North Atlantic. As a member of the “fish police,” Morrison monitored catches on Spanish fishing vessels to make sure they complied with European Union regulations and to log any endangered species.

Morrison also worked in outdoor education with adults and children in England and Massachusetts and at Talisman Camp for special-needs kids in North Carolina. She was active as a child, too, and, like kids at Wellspring Camps, she attended adventure camps where she hiked, rock climbed and kayaked. She wants to share her enthusiasm for the outdoors with campers.

“Let’s allow a teenager to be a kid, to have some fun. It seems like nowadays, that’s hard for young people. Let’s go out and have some fun and run with a ball down a field and get dirty,” Morrison says. “To see these young people learn and blossom over the summer is just so rewarding.”

Jess Clarke is a freelance writer and editor based in Asheville, N.C. Reach her at jcpoet@bellsouth.net.

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