THE NEXT RING

Growing Camp Hazen for the generations ahead

Growing with today's kids

The world young people are growing up in looks different than it did even a generation ago. Camp offers something increasingly unusual: sustained time outdoors, face-to-face relationships, meaningful independence, shared responsibility and opportunities to solve problems without immediately turning to a screen or an adult.

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At Hazen, those opportunities happen through Overnight Camp and Day Camp in the summer, and through school programs, retreats and other experiences throughout the year. As the needs of young people change, the physical camp needs to change too.

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That means thinking differently about accessibility. It means providing greater privacy. It means designing spaces where campers with different identities, abilities and needs can feel comfortable. It means making safety part of the way camp is designed rather than something added afterward.

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The goal isn't to make camp easier.

It's to remove the barriers that get in the way of the challenges that actually matter.

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Stewarding a place that belongs to generations

There is another reason the tree-ring metaphor fits Hazen. The people investing in camp today are rarely building only for themselves.

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A camper may use a new facility this summer without knowing who helped pay for it. Years later, that camper may return as a counselor, a parent, an alumnus or a donor. The next generation will inherit improvements made by people they may never meet.

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That has always been part of Hazen's story.

The Next Ring asks us to be equally thoughtful about what we leave behind. To maintain what previous generations entrusted to us. To improve what no longer serves kids as well as it should.

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And to build carefully enough that the work being done today will become part of the foundation someone else builds upon decades from now.