Eat Teach Blog

So, all this talk about UniCamp. What is it? And what makes it different (read: better) than your typical summer camp?

UniCamp is UCLA’s official charity (<—- not just pulling that out of my butt. It’s been around for over 75 years). We take nearly 1500 children from low-income families out of Los Angeles and up into the mountains. I can get into the nitty-gritty details of how it was developed over time. But I’ll spare you the details and explain why it continues to be successful year after year.

UniCamp offers its campers the typical summer camp experience – they’ve got swimming, recreation, archery, dance, drama, fishing (<– when I started camp, fishing was just a couple sticks, some wire, and a piece of cheese. We’ve upgraded since then). In the past few years, Unicamp has also invested in a ton of mountain bikes, a climbing tower, sailboats, canoes, etc. Clearly, I started camp in the dinosaur age.

But what makes it different – what makes it stand out above and beyond anything else I’ve been involved with – are the outcome-based programs that the volunteers create and implement during the week. With few and limited resources. Whether the focus of a program is on self-development, teamwork, or community – everything has been methodically planned out by the volunteers. Every activity, every debrief, every conversation has the overall outcome in mind.

Think: lesson planning…for camp. As teachers, we have a standard that we hope our students master by the end of the year. We develop lessons, objectives, and goals that allow students to grasp the content and to ultimately achieve mastery of the standard. Similarly, when developing programs for our campers, we are programming backwards. We have the session outcome in mind and branch off that to create our programs. I know you’re probably thinking that it sounds like work. That the kids already spend the entire school year working, collaborating, learning…..and that we should allow them a few weeks of simple, pure FUN…

But that’s the thing about camp. It’s kinda like a ninja. The kids are having fun. They are playing games, singing songs, participating in activities. And then we sneak up on them, when they don’t even expect it, and debrief the GAME in such a way that they learn something valuable. We play games. We have fun. Yet we still manage to walk away from each moment – a little smarter, a little wiser, a little more aware.

The thing I love most about UniCamp – the people you meet through the program (volunteers and campers alike) will remain in your heart forever. The lessons I’ve learned, the memories I’ve made, and the experiences shared are irreplaceable. There’s nothing quite like that Woodsey magic. That feeling of being completely yourself. That feeling of being so emotionally safe – knowing that no matter what shit is happening down the mountain, camp is your escape. But, in some sense, it’s reality. It’s what makes me come alive. I become the ideal version of myself.  Freshman year, I joined this organization thinking that I would be a positive role model for my future campers…that I’d be a mentor, someone they can learn from. Little did I know how much they’d end up teaching me…

In Case You Missed The Previous Recaps: 

The Development of the BEAV

First Year of Training 

Okay, now let me preface this post with explaining the “Freshman Divya.” Prior to freshman year of college, I had no idea what the words “roughing it” meant. I had never been camping and the only overnight trip I had been on was Outdoor Science Camp in 5th grade  (<—-we slept in enclosed cabins with fully functioning toilets and sinks. I barely participated in any of the group activities. And came back with nothing but extremely-chapped lips and an aversion to the outdoors).

So when I set foot onto Camp RiverGlen – UniCamp’s campsite – I wanted to turn and run the other way. It was not at all what I had expected. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting – but it wasn’t this. Not only did we make the 45-minute trek from the bottom of the mountain to some parking lot entrance. But we had to continue from that entrance down a 3-mile unpaved trail to reach our campsite. Those 3-miles took nearly 20 minutes because we couldn’t move faster than 5 mph for fear that our tires would blow.

Right after crossing over the bridge. Everywhere you look – trees, dirt, bugs. This sheltered girl was NOT used to this….

When we got out of the car, a gust of warm wind hit me in the face. There was dirt all around me. I was surrounded by trees and the mosquitos had already taken a liking to my skin. We crossed over the bridge and entered into camp. I saw a recreation area to my left (and by “rec area,” I mean a raised net blocked off by logs) and a big barn-like structure in front of me, which I later found out was the Lodge. To my right was a trail that led to the cabins. We started heading in that direction. I took one look at the cabins and that’s when the fear started to hit – the panic and anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to hack it. They were open-air cabins - meaning they had no doors or windows. Insects and bugs (more specifically, those damn mosquitoes) could come and go as they pleased. Don’t even get me started on the other animals that could easily just crawl into our cabin in the middle of the night (bats? baby bears? MOUNTAIN LIONS?).

My mind was racing with all these crazy thoughts. And it continued to race for the remainder of orientation. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night – I tugged my hood tight, dug deep into my sleeping bag, and prayed that no rat or bug could reach me. But every time my hair brushed across my face, I imagined a bug was crawling on me and I spazzed out, jumped out of bed and repeated this process at least ten times before my body was physically exhausted and passed out.

I managed to get myself through orientation, but for the two weeks leading up to camp, I kept going back and forth about whether I really wanted to put myself through that again. How could they expect me to be responsible for 10 kids when I couldn’t even be responsible for myself? 

I was {this close} to calling up my Head Counselor and telling her I developed some sort of a stomach flu. I had actually dialed 9 of the 10 digits. But then, I quickly hung up – I was scared to bail…I would have felt like the biggest flake ever. So I hung up. And decided to go through with it. And I am so glad I did. 

Okay let’s continue with the UniCamp saga (<—– saga = something that happens over a long period of time. I would say that UniCamp has been a part of my life for a SAGAs worth of time. That’s not correct English. I’m a teacher).

We left off with: How The Beav Came About 

……So, with my name permanently etched onto my sticky nametag, I walked into my very first UniCamp meeting. It was in some residential lounge – can’t remember which. 10th week of the quarter. And I knew nobody.

Let me just summarize the meeting for you. It was a lot of introducing ourselves and playing name games (Imagine this: “Hi, I’m Beav.” “Hi! I’m Goonie!” “Hi! I’m Pink Skies.” “Hi, I’m Dinglehopper”). No wonder people think we’re crazy. It was a lot of singing songs (for example: “God Bless my Underwear”). It was a lot of screaming and shouting. And things I wasn’t quite used to. I never went to a typical summer camp growing up. I went to TENNIS camp. Where people play tennis and only shout when they missed the ball (or heard shouting from angry parents on the sidelines).

My Leadership Team: Satori, Pink Skies, Vitamin D, and Dinglehopper

The remainder of spring training was just like that. Songs. Games. And themed meetings. That centered around our session outcome: “Change – It Begins With One.” 

I wasn’t particularly close to people in my session. A lot of them were “Old Woodseys” (<—- people who have done camp before) who had known each other from previous sessions. They were friendly, but I was shy and unwilling to leave my comfort zone. I opened up a bit more after our retreat, but I was still pretty closed off.

My Village – “The Youngest Village” – counselors for the youngest units up at camp (10-11 year olds)

Halfway through training, we had co-revs (where the Leadership Team reveals our COs and our positions up at camp). I got paired with another first-year Woodsey named Smiley. Together, we’d be the Unit 5 (youngest girls) counselors. While I was really excited about getting what I had preffed, I had yet to feel this “Woodsey magic” people spoke of. I couldn’t understand why people seemed to love this organization so much. What made UniCamp better than any other camp? Why did the KIDS come back year after year? Why did the volunteers speak of their years in camp as the most defining years of their lives?

All the old Woodseys assured me that it wasn’t something that I’d get or that I’d feel until the week up at camp. So I continued to blindly go through the process with that advice running through my head: “You just won’t know it until you DO it. You won’t feel it until you’re immersed in it.” 

That advice got my butt through training and it got me to on-site orientation (where we pre-acclimate ourselves to the campsite before we go back up with the kids). And then I almost quit camp…

….To Be Continued…. 

Before I give you a rundown of my week up at camp, let me back up to about 8 years ago when I joined this crazy, ridiculous, life-changing organization called UCLA UniCamp.

[Quick edit: Apparently, I can't sum up 8 years of my life with UniCamp in one post. Well, I can...but it'd be one super-humungous post. So, my UniCamp experiences will be shared in snippets....hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoyed writing and reflecting on some of the most important moments of my life...<3 )

As a young, (fairly) open-minded freshman at UCLA, I wanted to get involved. In high school, I had been overly involved in sports, ASB, and other organizations on campus. But UCLA was different because it was HUGE. It was really easy to get lost (literally and figuratively) and I was lacking a "community." Don't get me wrong, I lived in one of the more social residential halls and had the most amazing people living on my floor (still best friends with them to this day!), but I felt like I wanted to do more, see more, and contribute more. My RA (Residential Advisor) knew I liked working with kids and, about halfway through my first year, she casually mentioned UniCamp to me. I had no idea how much my life was going to change after filling out that application....

Source: UCLA UniCamp

Eight years later, I have no recollection of the words that were exchanged during the phone conversation. But apparently I passed the test and, soon after, joined Session 1 2005. My “Woodsey name” was is The Beav. Let me just quickly explain how that name came about (and then from here on out, I’ll direct people to this blog post when they give me weird looks or ask me if my “middle name on Facebook is a practical joke played by my friends.” I seriously can’t remember the number of times people have asked me why I voluntarily chose to be called The Beav):

Keep in mind – I was a shy freshman. So when I was filling out this application, I wanted to pretend I was fully capable and didn’t need anyone’s help (when, in actuality, I was probably just too nervous to ask). When I reached the section that asked for my “Woodsey name,” the non-outdoorsy, overly-sheltered girl in me was confused. What does that even mean? I have a name – you can call me Divya, thank you very much. But instead of asking someone (like a normal person would), I just took a guess. Woodsey – well….maybe it means I have to choose a name that’s related to nature/the woods. For example: log, tree, forest, rain, stump (<—- once again, please remember, I was a wee little FRESHMAN that didn’t know any better). So I chose Beav. For two reasons. (1) Beavers can be seen in the woods…right? And (2) My grandpa called me Biva (pronounced: Bee-vuh). I don’t know why or where that nickname came about, but it’s been his name for me since I was a lil baby.

So Beav stuck. Even after I was informed what a “Woodsey name” was…it stuck with me. For 8 years. And forever.