Camping Pioneer

The “camp bug” bit Kevin Gordon ’91 in college, when the psychology concentrator took a summer job as a tennis pro at a...

The “camp bug” bit Kevin Gordon ’91 in college, when the psychology concentrator took a summer job as a tennis pro at a Wisconsin girls’ camp. He had never camped as a boy, and was impressed by the “growth of the kids, the intensity of the camp experience.” But while learning the ropes as a counselor, activities leader, and assistant camp director in subsequent years, he noticed how homogeneous camp populations tended to be, and resolved one day to start a multicultural camp of his own.

Photographs courtesy of Kevin Gordon
Camp owners and directors Gordon and Jackson with their son, director-in-training Mico.
 

It took more than a decade, during which Gordon earned a J.D. at Berkeley and juggled law and camp jobs, as well as luck: there is no open market for residential camps, he says. In 2006, after two years of negotiating, he and his wife, Natasha Jackson, an elementary-school teacher and fellow veteran camp counselor, bought Camp White Eagle, two hours west of Chicago. They believe they are the only black owners of a private, residential, accredited summer camp in this country.

Now they are launching their next innovation. “Camp Kupugani” (www.campkupugani.com) is a multicultural session that aims to offer 7- to 12-year-old girls a challenging and enjoyable two-week program within which they can build self-confidence and community, free of the “sometimes limiting restrictions of school and other social hierarchies,” in Gordon’s words. He and Jackson have recruited a diverse set of counselors (“Mostly people we’ve worked with in the past”) and have fine-tuned the shorter, specialized trial session that they ran last year.

Photographs courtesy of Kevin Gordon
Snapshots from Camp Kupugani’s trial run last year
 

Kupugani, Gordon explains, is a Zulu concept meaning “to raise oneself up.” There hasn’t been a summer-camp tradition for girls of color in this country, he says, so one long-term goal is to educate their families about the benefits of camp. That way, he hopes, “we won’t have to specially search out minority counselors in the future: they will have grown up with camps,” and the camp movement itself will have become diverse.

~J.M.

Most popular

Is the Constitution Broken?

Harvard legal scholars debate the state of our founding national document.

Paolo Pasco and the art of making crosswords

Paolo Pasco and the art of making crosswords

Harvard Research Funding Will Resume, Government Signals

Notices of grant reinstatements follow a court ruling, but the Trump administration could still appeal. 

Explore More From Current Issue

Man splashing water on his face at outdoor fountain beside woman holding cup near stone building.

Why Heat Waves Make You Miserable

Scientists are studying how much heat and humidity the human body can take.

Two people moving large abstract painting with blue V-shaped design in museum courtyard.

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

Two women in traditional kimonos, one lighting a cigarette, in a scene from Apart from You.

Harvard Film Archive Spotlights Japanese Director Mikio Naruse

A retrospective of the filmmaker’s works, from Floating Clouds to Flowing