YMCA Camp Orkila for the day

Today, I had the opportunity to journey to beautiful Camp Orkila on Orcas Island with a group of women leaders to share our middle school memories and how we navigated the chasm between that point in our lives and where we are today with a group of girls entering 8^th and 9^th grade this fall who are part of the YMCA Patsy Collins Adventure in Leadership (PCAL).  This camp is all about empowering girls with the self-confidence to lead, the desire to give back to their communities and the awareness to live a healthy and balanced life.

The group included business owners, an attorney, corporate business executives, a world champion weight lifter, the heads of a couple of non-profit foundations, and at least three past or present Microsoft executives (see top photo of entire group).  We met at Kenmore Air on Lake Union and made the brief, yet spectacular flight through the San Juan Islands on two float planes, both of which were not able to tie up at the dock when we arrived, so our first camp challenge was to attain a foothold on the beach without getting too wet.

Once ashore, we were greeted by a few of the girls with welcome signs (see bottom photo above) and then escorted to meet the rest of the PCAL girls and their enthusiastic camp counselors.  We had the chance to sit with just a few of the girls at individual tables over lunch and the girls seemed to thoroughly enjoy telling us about their camp activities.  See photo of me with Maya and Channing on either side.

Following lunch, we sat in a big circle and each of the women shared a bit about our own life stories and then couldn’t resist giving the girls lots of advice.  All of the women guests were totally engaged and enjoying the conversation and shared stories, but I noticed as the hour wore on that the girls’ eyes were glazing over, so I don’t think they were quite up to having so much advice thrown their way.  I’m not sure what the answer is, but it would be interesting to think about a way to transfer some of the valuable information that was shared today in an interactive manner that the girls might enjoy more and where they could be more emotionally engaged.