North Star Reach offers life-changing camp
experiences for children with serious health challenges and their families.
1. Kids &
Families First
Every plan, paper
airplane, decision and action is focused around the children and their families
– our campers are our Polaris, our guiding North Star. If it is any indication,
we take our paper airplanes very seriously.
2. Playful
Professionalism
Our goal of
creating spectacularly average experiences for our campers requires the best of
both worlds. Our commitment to the highest level of safety and care while
laughing so hard your belly hurts takes hard work – work we embrace and are
honored to undertake. Besides, oxymorons are fun – just ask any jumbo shrimp,
they are generally the life of the party.
3. Safety Is our
Middle Name
Not really, but we
considered it. North Safety Reach just did not sound as good as North Star
Reach, but we liked the idea enough to incorporate safety into everything we
do. In fact, most of our staff and volunteers were primary school safety
guards.
4. Camp Is a
Prescription for Fun
The pillars of our
camp are: Joy, Fun, Laughter and Song. We wanted to include popsicles, puppies
and balloons, but someone said it didn’t sound professional enough.
5. Reach Higher
There are no
boundaries at camp due to a child’s condition or disability. Except the fence
around camp, guess that’s kind of a boundary.
6. Camp Rules
At camp, we only
have four rules, one for each of your fingers. Safety. Respect. Love. Challenge
By Choice. Safety is our number one priority. We respect people and the
environment around us. Love is a commitment to one another. Camp is a place
where you get to choose how to participate, not if you participate. Oh yeah,
and have some serious fun. Guess that’s really five rules. This way your thumb
won’t feel left out.
7. Welcome to the
Family
Our camp will be
open and welcoming to all who enter without hesitation. Camp is a family and a
community of caring people committed to making a difference for one another.
Unless you’re a skunk. Skunks – with that little white stripe, you are cute and
all, but we’d rather you stay home.
8. Together Everyone
Achieves More
We will work
together as a team, learn as a team and grow as a team. We will support each
other at all times and think of the team before ourselves. We will function in
an efficient, ethical and professional manner using our diverse experience,
knowledge and skills. In fact, we love teamwork so much we once tried to
organize a pinball team. Turns out, pinball is more of a one person thing.
9. Once in a Lifetime
Happens Every Day
We will celebrate*
successes of all shapes and sizes and give thanks. *Not all celebrations will
include confetti, cake or dancing, but we’ll try.
10. We Don’t Like Skunks but We Love R.A.T.S.
Rats are probably
the last thing you would want at camp. R.A.T.S stands for responsibility,
accountability, trust and stewardship. We will hold ourselves to the highest
standard to be responsible with our financial, human and community resources
through innovation, thoughtfulness and sticky notes. We have a ton of recycled
sticky notes.
11. Freedom
We allow for
freedom and empowerment and choice. For example, you could choose to print this
list out and make it into a paper airplane. We’d be cool with that – since
you’d be putting kids first!
