How can the Jewish community ensure that its children will engage in Judaism as adults? This is the fundamental question asked by Jewish professionals, lay leaders, and parents.
Over the past few years, the Foundation for Jewish Camp has proposed one solution: sending kids to Jewish summer camp.
In 2010, a ground-breaking study by the Foundation for Jewish Camp, entitled “Camp Works: The Long Term Impact of Jewish Overnight Camp,” found that as adults, campers who attended Jewish summer camp are:
• 30 percent more likely to donate to a Jewish Federation.
• 37 percent more likely to light candles regularly for Shabbat.
• 45 percent more likely to attend synagogue at least once a month.
• 55 percent more likely to feel very emotionally attached to Israel.
These statistics prove what Jewish leaders and educators have been saying anecdotally for years: Jewish camp works.
In 2006, the Foundation for Jewish Camp launched the One Happy Camper initiative, providing financial incentive grants for kids to attend Jewish summer camp.
In 2012, thanks to a generous anonymous community donor, Milwaukee joined as a partner to provide our children with One Happy Camper incentive grants.
Starting this year, first-time Milwaukeean campers at Jewish sleep away camps can receive up to $1,000 in incentive grants; and there are more than 150 camps nationwide from which they can choose.
The Milwaukee One Happy Camper initiative has its home at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and is overseen by Community Outreach Specialist Rabbi Hannah Greenstein.
What does One Happy Camper have to do with outreach? Outreach is about lowering barriers to entry into the Jewish community.
One of these barriers is financial, and One Happy Camper grants address this barrier directly.
Another barrier, however, is Jewish knowledge. Jewish summer camps have the unique ability to educate about Jewish values and traditions in a fun, peer-supported, non-threatening way.
When children are Jewishly-inspired, they bring home a greater sense of Jewish knowledge and Jewish pride. (Some 98 percent of One Happy Camper participants feel that camp creates an atmosphere where children are proud to be Jewish.)
The most poignant statistic of all the studies is that 82 percent of One Happy Camper recipients return to camp for a second summer — without any kind of incentive grant. The Jewish camping experience has proven incentive enough.
If you or anyone you know might be interested in the 2013 One Happy Camper grants, check your eligibility at www.onehappycamper.org or contact Rabbi Hannah Greenstein at hannahg@milwaukeejewish.org or 414-390-5764.
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