New England Yearly Meeting of Friends
FRIENDS CAMP 2008
729 Lakeview Drive, South China, Maine, 04358
Four Youth Camp Sessions for youth ages 7 to 17 years old
Two Drama Camps for youth ages 11 to 17 years old
Two Outdoor Experience Camps for youth ages 11 to 17 years old
Leadership and Service Camp for youth ages 14 to 18 years old
Family Camp for everyone ages 3 to 93 years old

Welcome to Friends Camp! This coming summer will be our fifty-fifth season. For five and a half decades, campers have looked back at their time at Friends Camp as a wonderful life-changing experience. Summer after summer, our counselors and campers have created their own intentional community based on five important values: 

1. Create an atmosphere of tolerance and love where special friendships can develop.

2. Develop a community that sees the light of goodness in everyone.

3. Live the Quaker values of community, equality, integrity, peace, & simplicity.

4. Offer interesting, creative, non-competitive and fun activities that help young people grow into healthy and responsible adults. 

5. Work toward a more diverse community by providing affordable tuition and camperships.

We are also a camp full of silliness and lots of zany fun! Our goal is to help each individual become a more thoughtful, joyful, and caring person. Picking a camp is about finding a good match between a young person and a camp’s values and programs, so if our values and programs look good to you and your child, keep reading!

Young people from ages 7 to 17 attend Friends Camp in four age-appropriate traditional sessions and several camps with a special focus. Our traditional sessions run for two weeks each and are full of all kinds of interesting activities. In addition, we offer three drama camps, three outdoor experience camps, one leadership camp, and one aquatic safety camp. Youth can attend Friends Camp for one, two, four, and in some cases, six weeks. Friends Camp is a small camp with 75 to 95 campers. Our rustic cabins have bunks for between 7 to 10 campers, with one or two counselors sleeping in each cabin. Campers develop a strong loyalty to Friends Camp, and return summer after summer.

In an increasingly hectic world, Friends Camp is one of the few remaining places that allows young people to reconnect with nature and learn a sense of community through spiritual fellowship. At Friends Camp, we provide a place for children to get away from television and video games, cell phones, e-mail, and instant messaging. Friends Camp has been a very meaningful and life-changing experience for many young people. They have taken part in this summer adventure and have learned new things, tried new activities, become more thoughtful, and have shared special bonds with some very special friends. Some of our campers come from Quaker families, but most hail from other backgrounds. We welcome youth of all faiths as well as those who identify with no particular faith at all.

Please note that we have expanded our age range on some of the sessions so that our schedule is more flexible for your summer planning. We also wanted to make it easier for siblings to attend the same session, and for youth to attend multiple sessions. In addition, we have changed our summer calendar so that younger campers can attend camp at the start of the summer. If you have any questions about Friends Camp, please call or e-mail us at our winter office.

Peace,

Nat Shed, Director