Letter from the Executive Director
Setting and achieving goals as a young person is critical to growing into a happy, healthy, resilient, compassionate, contributive adult. Whether it’s studying hard and getting good grades in school, running and lifting weights to make the lacrosse team, talking to folks about things you are thinking about, treating the natural world with the respect it deserves, or reaching out to make new friends with someone less popular, it feels great to work hard and stretch.
Going away to camp or to The Leadership School is a perfect time to practice trying something new. When we leave all of our creature comforts and our familiar surroundings behind us and step onto a magical Damariscotta Lake peninsula surrounded by enthusiastic, optimistic young role models, something very special happens. With our electronics shut off, we notice and take great pleasure in the sounds, smells and beauty all around us. We talk to each other a lot more. Maybe we’ll see a piece of trash on the ground and make the effort to pick it up. Maybe we’re scared of all of these unfamiliar surroundings and people, but wow, everybody is so nice. Maybe we reinvent who we are. We look up at a platform 50 feet off the ground and start climbing with the sounds of our friends, teachers and counselors shouting encouragement. We jump off the dock and start swimming to the island nearly a third of a mile away. We work together with our friends to help build a trail, summit Katahdin, or haul our canoes and gear across a couple of miles of buggy, swampy portage trail just like our ancestors have done for generations. When our work is done or our classes are over, we grab a book or a fishing rod, sit under a tree at the edge of a lake or in a canoe, and we take a deep breath. And we smile – a lot.
Despite all of the awful news about war, the economy, our planet, and countless other things, life at Kieve and Wavus is simple, pure, and wonderful. Let’s not forget to work hard, play hard, and to celebrate together this spring, summer, and forever.
Faithfully yours,
Henry R. Kennedy
Executive Director, Kieve-Wavus Education, Inc.
