It’s the last day of VAMPY and, as always, the kids are sad. Still, the events of this evening will be some of the most memorable. I can still think back to my fourth year: the final lunch, running through the fountain, the final dance, the fourth year speeches, every moment so crisp and clear. I remember fighting tears in my speech, the last slow song, and the last hours of community time. It’s those moments that make this camp what it is, and it’s those moments that keep kids coming back. It’s the kids and the teachers and the aura of awesomeness that surrounds this camp that creates these moments. It’s the relationships the kids build and the memories they share that brought the endless tears last night during the traditional “cry fest.” It’s that sense of unity, no matter how different the individual kids may be, that creates these relationships. When grouped together, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.
Luckily for the majority of the camp, the experience has just begun: more years, friends, and memories to come. So this next part goes out to the fourth years whether you are a fourth-fourth or just a first-fourth. Your life is just beginning too. Take all the things you have learned from the last four years and use it to change the world. This is the beginning of life after camp. VAMPY can live on within you if you just take it with you wherever you go. Get involved in honors clubs elsewhere and find the same like-minded people that make this camp what it is. Stay in touch with those you held dearest and be sure to stop by to visit every once in a while (soon enough you’ll be driving). For some this is the end of VAMPY forever, but it doesn’t have to be. You control your future. Make it a verbally and mathematically precocious one.
It has come very quickly, but alas, it is closing time.
Here’s to a new beginning, coming from this other beginning’s end.