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Muddy Buddies and Pippy Pond

As a first-timer at Jacobs Camp, all these new terms are really fun to learn but they can also be a little intimidating. When Eric Weintraub, the Activities Director, told me to come up with Chugim for Garin, I tried to think of what I liked to do as a little girl… I remembered a picture my mom has of me, covered from head to toe in mud- while wearing a fancy dress for a nice lunch. Kids love mud! And so, Muddy Buddies Chug was born! A few Garin and I walked around the adventure area and talked about making our own mud out of dirt and buckets of water from the spigots near the Tower. After much discussion and exploration, we found the perfect type of mud near the pool so we gathered buckets and wooden planks to transport our building material, and then we added sticks and rocks for what I consider a pretty architecturally sound creation.

The campers originally decided to build a waterfall out of sticks, rocks, and mud. By the second day of the chug, their waterfall turned into an amazing replica of Lake Gary, complete with lake toys like the Wet Willie, the Iceberg, and the Blob. All of this was their idea! I was just there as a mule to transport all the heavy mud and pick up sticks and rocks for my builder buddies.

Part of the Jacobs Magic is that you can just give campers attention and watch them create and learn and grow. See for yourself!

Pippy joins Jacobs Camp this summer as the Adventure Department Head where she leads our campers through our Adventure challenge course. The challenge course consists of low elements that foster team-building and high rope elements like the tower and zipline. The picture above is “Pippy Pond,” the name of the replica Lake Gary.