Hello everybody! My name is Nikki Nystrom. I’m a 24-year-old from Pittsburgh, PA. Let’s take it back to the beginning, where I first met the Leahy family at my university’s career fair in 2014!
My senior year of college was just around the corner when I stumbled across the Camp Chen-A-Wanda booth and thought “Why not?!” because I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be post-college; I thought this was the perfect time for an adventure and what an adventure it has been!
I joined the Chenny family as a General counselor and loved every second of it. The friendships I made with everyone around me were so genuine and incredible, and little did I know, it would only continue to get better!
During my summer camp career, I have been able to work as a Basketball Specialist, Group Leader, and now a Head Counselor for Navajo camp! Being a camp counselor can be very challenging, but there are a ton of benefits from it as well. Over the last few summers, I’ve learned how to be a great role model, leader, and friend. All of my campers mean the world to me and the bond we have built will always have a special place in my heart.
For me, the best part about working at camp is seeing everyone have a great time while making new memories. Having a great time is what camp is all about! I’ve had the opportunity to experience some AWESOME activities, day trips, and days/nights off while working at Chenny. This past summer, I was able to take a trip to the West Coast and see a ton of remarkable places with the GC division. The memories I have made in the last few summers will never leave my head and I’m always looking forward to making new ones every summer. Chen-A-Wanda has had such a huge impact on my life. I feel that I have grown into a better person every time I step foot in camp. Thank you, Chenny, for giving me new friendships, experiences, and of course, Ruben! Hurry up summer 2018!!
My transition from camper to counselor was scary. How could I go from living in a bunk with my camp friends to being a counselor in charge of my own campers? However, my Junior Counselor summer was one of my favorite summers at camp to this day. I lived in a bunk with my Freshmen girls (who are now about to be CIT’s and Junior Counselors) and had amazing co-counselors. I loved bonding with my campers and I made new camp friends while keeping the old as well. I went on to be a counselor for three summers becoming Olympic Captain, Color War Lieutenant and being awarded counselor of the year. I thought my counselor years couldn’t get better, and then I became a Group Leader for the Inter girls in 2012. I loved being a group leader for my Inter girls and building relationships with my counselors as well. However, nothing can compare to the day when Gary Shields called me to base camp to ask me if I would come back the following summer to be an Assistant Head Counselor. I was nervous, scared, and excited all at the same time. Of course, I said yes and started Summer 2013 in Mohican Camp (middle ages) under Amy Simmons, one of my best camp friends to this day. That summer was truly amazing. Since then I have been in both Navajo and Mohican camp as the Girls Head Counselor with each summer getting better and better than the last. Now, I am entering my sixteenth summer at this amazing place as the Mohican girls side Head Counselor for the sixth year and I am so excited what this summer has in store for me. In the offseason, I took a career path that would allow me to come back to camp summer after summer. In the winter I work as a Special Education Teacher in Manhattan and just completed my master’s degree in General Education and Special Education 1-6. My job is both rewarding and challenging, but working with kids, I knew was always my path in life.
Throughout my Chenny journey, I have met many people that have helped shape me into the strong, kind-hearted, loving and independent person I am today. I have learned many life lessons, fallen in love, and created friendships and memories to last a lifetime. I have watched my campers grow from little girls into young adults and helped them along the way as they became counselors to their very own campers. Camp has been an amazing experience for me and I am so excited to see where the next chapter takes me as the rest of my journey is still to come! Bring on Chenny 18!!
My days at camp started in 2004 as a Junior girl. My parents say that I was born ready for camp and happily waved them off the bus on that first day wearing my custom Chenny shirt, red and gold hot loops, and my nails painted red and gold with Chen-A-Wanda across them. From that day, I knew that camp would be my home away from home. From playing on the sports fields to dancing in the dining hall, from writing songs for Girl’s Sing to Color War, and inevitably crying my eyes out on the last day, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to get to do it all again the next summer.
I was a CIT in 2011 and I thought nothing could beat that summer. I had done it all, even spray-painted Arts and Crafts, but I still couldn’t imagine my life without this place. I remember sitting on the Lake Court crying my eyes out, thinking how I’d come back and not get to be a camper and do it all over again. However, I thankfully realized that I did get to do it all over again, but instead through the eyes of eager young campers, just like I was eight summers before. I quickly saw them make those best friends connections with camper and counselors that we wouldn’t trade for the world, got to write songs for them to have them put on an amazing Girl’s Sing, and got to watch them develop a love for camp that is irreplaceable.
I truly have camp to thank for shaping me into the person I am today. It was the place I grew up and learned the most, and those lessons have been with me every step of the way since. It was a place that’s given me life-long friends and little sisters that I couldn’t imagine my life without. To any camper or staff, new or returning, don’t take Chen-A-Wanda for granted, cherish each moment that you have inside that bubble because sadly it isn’t always possible for you to return. I left my mark and my camp story was over, but I will never not cherish Chen-A-Wanda and all that it gave me.
This will be my 18th summer at Chen-A-Wanda. As the Office Manager, I work with everyone from Campers, Parents, Counselors, Support Staff to Head Staff. I do a lot of behind the scenes, from creating parent information, camper forms, scheduling camper phone calls, to making sure your camper has his/her allotted spending money for their trips. During Orientation Week, when I speak to the staff I always tell them, I am the person to ask when they aren’t sure who to ask since either I will know the answer or else I will know where to direct them.
It was the summer of 1980. I had attended Camp Olympus and knew Morey Baldwin. Right before the summer, Morey offered me a job as a Camp Counselor for six-year-old boys, the youngest bunk on camp! Long story short, it was a disaster as I didn’t have the maturity or patience. Two weeks into camp, I was miserable and Morey was ready to fire me and send me home for the summer. Urghh!
I started in 2012 as the Jewelry Specialist and was a counselor for the Junior girls. It’s safe to say that, even throughout the nerves, I instantly fell in love with camp. Your first summer at camp is something that you’ll never forget. Your first Olympics, 4th of July fireworks, Girls Sing, and Color War, just to name a few, and all the excitement that comes with it. After finishing my first summer, there was no doubt in my mind that I had to return, but I had no idea what the next 5 years had in store for me. I stayed as an Arts Specialist for a few summers, before becoming the Art Lead, now, the Art Director.
Both of my siblings went to Chenny and in the summer of 1999, I visited my sister, Allison, at camp for Visiting Day. For the first time ever, my sister cried as we were leaving. My mom then told Allison that I’d be joining her at camp next year as if that would make her feel any better. From the moment those words left my mom’s mouth, I was hooked. After Allison finally came back from camp, I asked (forced) her to tell me all about camp. That was my new “bedtime story.” Allison would tell me things about camp activities, traditions, bunks, routines, and trips. My sister even made me charts about things you could eat in the Dining Hall (I was relieved to find out that bagels made the cut). I was obsessed, and I didn’t even truly know what I was obsessed with yet.
Summer 2000 rolled in and I got on the bus to Pennsylvania and never looked back, only knowing one girl I met briefly before camp started. There weren’t Facebook groups or ways to connect with campers easily beforehand. I went in blind. I still remember playing icebreaker games on the baseball field, meeting the girls I am forever friends with for the first time. As days and years passed, I became inseparable with my camp friends. The bond you make is one of a kind and reaches far beyond the bunk and the summer. Together we learned how to problem solve, connect, communicate, and grow as individuals. Whether it was by playing broken telephone, writing an Alma Mater for Girls Sing, or apologizing after a fight. These joint experiences created a friendship and sisterhood that is limitless. All it takes is a text or a photo to bring back a lifetime of memories, even if we haven’t seen each other in years. I am happy to say that we are still friends and make it a point to see each other a few times a year. We always have the best time.
After my CIT summer, I knew I would be back at Chen-A-Wanda to work. I had an amazing camper-counselor, Allie, who played a huge part in my CAW experience; I wanted to be that for someone else, or at least try. I became a Junior Counselor, General Counselor, and then a Group Leader for the girls I was a CIT for. I followed them from their Middy summer to their CIT summer. As my camp friends stopped coming back to camp, these girls continued to teach me lessons on building relationships, solving problems, seeing things from a new perspective and learning to roll with the punches. It was a tough job, one of the hardest I have ever had, but also the most rewarding. My campers became my little sisters and a new generation that loved camp was born. I am proud of the relationships I have built with them and they still text me for La Piazza dinner dates when home from college!
Not a day goes by that a song, a memory, a joke, or a picture doesn’t remind me of a Chen-A-Wanda. Seeing my camp friends and my campers grow and make positive changes in the world are amazing and those summers changed us all for the better. I am currently a Speech Language Pathologist in a special education school in Queens, New York. My time at Chenny and the lessons I learned continue to guide me in this role, and in all aspects of my life. It is impossible, to sum up, what a 14 year (but lifelong) experience has done for me in just a few paragraphs, but I tried. To the new campers just starting out on their Chenny careers, embrace it. I promise it will be worth it. To old/former campers, if you haven’t spoken to your camp friends in a while, send them a message or a picture. Reach out and make lunch plans. You won’t even realize how much you have missed each other until you do.
To get to camp, I had to go through an agency. The first and only camp I heard from was CAW. As soon as I saw the website, I knew it was for me and any other camp that came along, wouldn’t have compared.
I have met some of my best friends at camp who live all over the world and to think I would have never known them is crazy! Who would have thought that I would run into Neill Hogg in the middle of Edinburgh whilst both at sperate Christmas parties at the same place – that’s what camp does for you; you meet people from all around the world and have a possibility of running into them on the streets or at a local spot.
As for our story as a couple, it definitely got off to a slow start! As Sports Specialists in 2002, we must have walked past each other hundreds of times but we never said a word to each other. I mentioned several times to my buddies that I thought she was beautiful, but never even fathomed speaking to her. Playing hard-to-get was more my style 😉 We each came back to camp in 2003 with significant others from our respective hometowns, so we once again never said a word to one another. I then missed the 2004 summer to finish my teaching credential and Laura then missed the 2005 summer to add other work to her resume. 2006 rolled around and I finally mustered the guts to introduce myself. I strolled up to Laura one day while she was hanging out with one of her friends and introduced myself as “The idiot who never had the confidence to introduce myself before.” Our first date was a foosball tournament at Chet’s Place nearby camp in which Laura boasted about her supreme skills. She turned out to be awful and we got destroyed and eliminated in our first-round game.
Despite Laura’s subpar foosball showing, we had a blast together and I knew that I was with someone incredibly special. We spent the 2006-2007 school year trying to figure out whether or not we were dating as Laura was in Canada finishing school and I was back in California teaching kindergarten. We officially came back to camp in 2007 as a couple and I surprised her that December by showing up at her apartment in Calgary with an engagement ring. (Fun bit of trivia: The first person I called from the jewelry store parking lot after buying her ring was our camp owner, Jon Grabow!) We got married by a justice of the peace in her parents’ kitchen in March of 2008 to kick start my VISA application to immigrate to Canada. This was my first time meeting her parents, by the way. Nervous doesn’t begin to cover how I was feeling. We ultimately had our real wedding on a beach in Nova Scotia in 2010 where our dear Chenny friend, Matty Lennon presided over our ceremony.
Initially, we only saw each other in the lodge or just in passing. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me then because it’s the same way she does now, the slight head tilt, soft, kind big brown eyes, near crater sized dimples, and pursed lips…..rendered me helpless. Without fail, my heart, stomach, and smile would instantly drop, turn, and grin every time I entered the lodge. It became an obstacle to navigate the steps without tripping.
I wanted to give a super ‘Thank You’ to Brian Leahy for the willingness to recommend an old friend to experience camp, Jon and Elisa Grabow for granting me the opportunity to grow as a person and ultimately meet my wife, and lastly Kevin Breen, for helping me to realize that I would kick myself if I didn’t follow up with Hanna when the summer of 15′ was over. So, I took his advice, now we get to live the summer of 2015 for the rest of our lives. Thanks, Kev, we miss you brotha!