For the Love of Summer Camp

When your most cherished childhood experience becomes impossible for your own kids, there’s only one choice: recreate it for them yourself. That’s what Jim Sperber did three years ago when the pandemic shut down summer camps across the country. He’d grown up going to his beloved Keewaydin camp in Vermont, and his three kids followed that tradition until, in 2020, when they couldn’t. But Sperber refused to let the tradition die. He and his wife created their own version of Keewaydin in and around their home in the New York City suburb of Bedford Corners, complete with riflery, campfire songs, and an overnight in the woods. It proved to be a wild adventure in parenting—and a magical summer for their family.

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