Before coming to
Jameson Camp, Korean Thomas was very shy and didn’t like to initiate social
contact. After her first year, Korean’s social skills and ability to make new
friends greatly increased. In fact, in her third year attending, Korean says
her favorite part of camp is “getting to meet everybody and make friends with
many of the different counselors and campers.” Korean has received help from
many counselors, but she specifically looks up to Bailey, who in her first year
helped her to open up and make new friends.
These social
skills Korean has learned have helped her with making friends at school, which
may be very important in the future. Korean currently lives with her dad, but will
soon be moving to live with her mom, resulting in a school change. A new school
means a new environment and new peers. However, Korean isn’t as worried about
making new friends after learning how to connect with fellow campers every year
at Jameson Camp.
One
specific area where Jameson Camp helped Korean blossom is through recreation. Because
of the confidence she has learned at Jameson Camp she has joined the school’s
basketball team and continues to work on her skills at camp. Korean is also
proud of her swimming skills. She believes that she has always been a good
swimmer, but now she can keep above water while supporting four or five of her
fellow campers. With this improvement Korean now has dreams of becoming an
Olympic swimmer!
Some
of Korean’s other future aspirations include attending college, writing poetry,
and playing professional basketball. Korean enjoys writing as an escape from
boredom, but the recognition that she received after sharing some of her work
with campmates at Jameson Camp has inspired her to keep moving forward –
“People couldn’t believe that I wrote that and said my poem was so good.”
Korean sees poetry as a way to express herself. She says, “There is more to
life so you look at life and you write.” Korean enjoys reflecting on life and
sharing her findings with campers and counselors at Jameson Camp.
Korean
plans to come back in the summer mainly because it is fun and it helps
everyone. “People that don’t really fit in can come to this camp and have fun
with everyone; there are no problems here,” she said.
