The Power of Care: The Counselors of Camp Yeka

On the first afternoon of camp, one boy sat quietly off to the side, watching the others. It was his first time there, and he didn’t know anyone yet. The braids in his hair had come undone sometime during the day, and he was trying unsuccessfully to fix them on his own.

One of the counselors walked over and sat down beside him. Together they redid the braids, talking quietly while the rest of the camp carried on around them. It was a small moment, easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention, yet it marked the beginning of a relationship that would become one of the closest connections that summer.

A week later, when that same camper made the deeply personal decision to have a Brit Milah and choose a Jewish name, he chose the name of that counselor.

Scenes like this were woven throughout the rhythm of camp life. A counselor pausing beside a camper who seemed unusually quiet during an activity. Another staying back on the field after a game to encourage a boy who was convinced he wasn’t good at anything. Someone else gently stepping between two friends whose disagreement had begun to grow into something bigger. A quiet conversation on a bench before dinner, or a counselor lingering a few extra minutes outside a bunk at night.

Most of the counselors at Camp Yeka are students and young adults who choose to spend their breaks this way, often stepping away from studies or taking time off from work in order to be there. They arrive from different places and backgrounds, but share a simple commitment to give their time, attention, and energy to the young people around them.

That attentiveness does not end when the day’s activities are over.

Late at night, after the campers have gone to sleep and the staff finally has a chance to sit together and unwind, the conversation often returns to the campers themselves. Which child seemed quieter than usual that day. Who might need encouragement tomorrow. How to help two campers who struggled to get along. What small change might make someone feel more included.

These conversations rarely feel formal. They unfold casually, between laughter and tired smiles at the end of long days. Again and again the focus returns to the same question: how are the kids doing, and what can we do better for them tomorrow?

Those connections rarely end when the summer does. Long after camp is over, counselors still hear from the campers they spent weeks guiding. Messages arrive throughout the year, updates from school, questions, sometimes just a quick hello. And just as often, the counselors reach out first, checking in to see how someone is doing or offering encouragement when it is needed.

For some of these counselors, that sense of responsibility first appeared in far more difficult circumstances.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, as families and children began crossing borders, several Camp Yeka counselors traveled to places like Poland, Austria, and Germany to help greet arriving groups of Jewish children and support them in their first uncertain days after leaving home.

In Poland, one group of twenty children arrived from Dnipro after days of travel. Their adult chaperone had been detained at the border, and the children crossed alone, exhausted and unsure what would happen next.

Two Camp Yeka counselors met them there.

There was no prepared program and no clear plan waiting. They began with the basics. They took the children shopping for clothes and essentials, spent time with them in the city, and helped create a sense of calm and stability after days of uncertainty.

These were young people barely older than some of the children they were caring for, yet they stepped naturally into the responsibility placed before them, listening, guiding, and simply being present when it mattered most.

Experiences like these reveal something meaningful about the young people who choose to serve as counselors. Their leadership rarely announces itself loudly. It appears in quiet attentiveness, in patience, in the willingness to sit beside someone who needs support, and in the decision to show up fully for the young people entrusted to their care.

Watching these counselors over time leaves a deep impression. Their days are long, their responsibilities constant, and their work often unfolds in moments few others ever see. Yet they bring remarkable dedication, warmth, and thoughtfulness to the role.

In every generation there are young people who choose to invest themselves in the well-being of others. The counselors of Camp Yeka are part of that tradition, young leaders whose influence is felt through the relationships they build and the care they offer.

And sometimes it begins with something as simple as sitting down beside a child and helping redo a set of braids.