When most people hear the words "summer camp," they immediately think of swimming, singing around the campfire, or s'mores at night. My experience at a Northeastern Maryland nonprofit camp, “Imadi at Eagle Point,” was far from the standard. For the past two summers, I was Head of Logistics to help oversee a camp for children with terminal illnesses and complex diagnoses. It was an environment in which safety, joy, and creativity came together and where I discovered a passion that is shaping my career goals.
At the surface level, my role was to maintain the property, coordinate activities, and make sure the camp ran as efficiently as possible, but the magic occurred on the projects my friends and I completed. We built a 40-foot pirate ship from the ground up as a team, transforming a bare floating dock into the highlight of our campers' summer, while we only had 24 hours to build it for the next day's theme. We built a giant mock Hollywood sign at one point, just adding to the theme of the week, which was famous movies and TV shows. My manager once joked, "You guys could turn a stack of wood into Disneyland if you had time," and I truly think it was possible.
Not everything was so neat or glamorous. One of the craziest experiences was a "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" themed day. We rented a towable boom lift, filled buckets with spaghetti and meatballs, and dropped over 400 pounds of food on campers and counselors. The devastation was incredible, but so were the reactions. It reminded me that what we built didn't have to be perfect; it had to bring people together.
These experiences gave me more than stories; they gave me advice. From the internship, I learned hard skills like money management in QuickBooks, data management through Salesforce, and even farm safety protocol for maintaining camp gardens and safeguarding vulnerable children. At the same time, I developed soft skills like teamwork with counselors and medical personnel, crisis intervention through storms and supply missions, and even conflict resolution for some fights among our volunteers.
Looking back, I realize that Imadi was not just an internship; it was a career turn. It combined creativity, responsibility, and community impact in a way that revealed to me where I want my life to be headed. I now realize that I want to make a career out of carpentry and construction, ultimately with the desire to be my own business owner one day. The summers at Imadi showed me that building things, whether it was signs or pirate ships, had the power to change kids' lives, and mine as well.
