Summer Memories at Willowell
Summer Memories at Willowell | Peace Blog
For the past four years, the best two weeks of my summer have been the Volunteers for Peace camp at Willowell. What do I look forward to the most? Helping out in the kitchen of Monkton Friends Methodist as a couple of volunteers cook a meal from their country. Walking out to our worksite in the morning over the fields at the Willowell Foundation, knowing that we’ll be spending the day outside together, making progress on a tangible goal. Gathering everyone in the car and heading to the New Haven River in the afternoon to cool off Vermont-style. Introducing our volunteers to friends and community at the annual Bocce Tournament. And, of course, learning new words, like “mogi,” Korean for “mosquito.”
A Volunteers for Peace camp is unlike any other period of time in my life in that I’m spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with the same group of people. I find that connections form easily. While the days seem to go by fast, each day ends with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction because of the collaborative work and the time the group invested in itself. At the end of camp, I feel as if we’ve completed a journey together, and this year what we brought back was a beautiful wooden platform that Willowell will use for classes and artist residencies for years ahead.
Thank you to our volunteers Amy, Ana, Berat, Alexa, Johnny, Yubeen and Peter, co-leaders Lizzie and Josh, Ralph at Monkton Friends Methodist, and the many other people who made the Willowell camp great this year!
