Fourteen Summers and a Master’s Degree

Camp

Schreiber Island is a place where you can breathe. One camper told us this summer that camp is his New Year: a time to think, reflect, and reset.

Every year the island looks a little different. New campers, new counselors, new faces around the fire. With one exception. Davion Alexander has shown up for fourteen summers straight. He arrived as a camper who was deeply suspicious of bunkhouses and outhouses (honestly, fair). These days he’s the one leading our newest campers on hikes, swims, games, and s’mores, and assuring them the outhouse is fine (mostly).

Each summer we catch up and ask him the same question: what’s next? The answers kept getting bigger. College. A degree. His own apartment in Raleigh. A job in the mental health field. Plus, all the unglamorous stuff nobody warns you about, like dentist appointments, car insurance, cooking, cleaning, and budgeting.

This year’s answer topped them all. Davion is headed to North Carolina Central University to earn his Master’s in Social Work. Our first camper to graduate from college is now our first camper in graduate school.

Davion, we could not be prouder. The kid who was scared of the outhouse is going to spend his career helping other people through the hard stuff.