What sets Camp Oakwood apart from the rest? Is it our acres of shady green fields, free of poison ivy that our neighboring camps are struggling so valiantly to contain? Is it our high-energy counselors who return year after year, because they are legally documented U.S. citizens? Or is it our generous “late-bird special” pricing plan, aimed at discriminating parents like you who do not believe in rushing any decision that concerns your children, especially when it comes to choosing the right alternative to Camp Tomahawk, which had the misfortune last year of being shut down by the Department of Sanitation for five repeated incidences of human fecal material floating in their pool? The truth is, it’s all of these features that set Camp Oakwood apart from the rest.
Our mission statement, “To help your child celebrate who he or she is meant to be” guides our camp’s principles day in, day out. Maybe you know your child is meant to be captain of the travel soccer team, even though he has difficulty remembering that, when the ball comes, you are supposed to kick it. Camp Oakwood is a top-rated sports camp boasting the Blue Ribbon Badge of Honor from the American Association of Summer Athletic Programs. Our campers go on to compete in junior varsity, varsity, and Olympic team games. It’s all part of our mission statement: “To build self-esteem through sports.”
Of course, not all children are meant to be athletes, and that is why Camp Oakwood does not emphasize sports. Instead, we focus on academics. Our mission statement is: “Building strong minds, one summer at a time.” In addition to daily enrichment activities such as Mandarin immersion and Javascript, our campers enjoy two mandatory sessions per day of Stanley Kaplan S.A.T. preparation, guaranteeing that even our youngest, pre-verbal campers, “Brainy Babies,” will quadruple their test scores by summer’s end. The best part? All of our mandatory activities are entirely optional, because at Camp Oakwood, we do not believe in pressuring our campers to become someone they are not meant to be. Unlike academically focused camps such as Camp Cherokee, with its excellent staff of on-site child psychiatrists who specialize in such nervous conditions as pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, intellectual performance is never the focus at Camp Oakwood. Here, we believe in the whole child. The heart. The legs. The hands. Is it any wonder that our mission statement is “Heart, legs, and hands?”
“Gonorrhea” is a word you will never hear at Camp Oakwood. While it is certainly no secret that Brittney McDonough (“Mc-Done-Her”), the promiscuous head counselor of Camp Rockwood’s group 3B-Mermaids, has enjoyed a well-earned reputation for reaching out to the troubled male C.I.T. s of nearby Camp Meadowbrook, resulting in last summer’s outbreak of venereal disease at both locations, each of our carefully-screened counselors at Camp Oakwood is required to place their hand on a copy of the Old Testament (we do not condone the unspoken anti-Semitism practiced at all other camps) and take an oath of abstinence. We encourage you to take a guided tour of our grounds, so you can see for yourself that none of our female counselors have distended abdomens, a telltale sign that they are impregnated, as they are at Camps Monroe and Sherwood.
While you’re here, please check out our brand new play structure! In keeping with our mission statement, “Play structures, not teenage pregnancies,” it is covered in colorful foam rubber, with a rubberized ground surface to eliminate scrapes and boo-boos such as a four-year-old boy falling off the monkey bars and becoming permanently paralyzed because his counselor was high on Molly last summer at Camp Wompanaget. Your kids will love climbing on it! And you’ll love knowing that they are at a camp who’s mission statement is “Safety first,” instead of one that is owned by Mel Evans of Shady Acres, who does not rinse his recycling before placing it in the bin.
Tetherball. Nature hikes. Arts ’n crafts. An instructional swim program with none of the drowning deaths that go unreported at Camp Brookhaven each year. It’s not too late to give your children the summer they were meant to have. It’s not too late for Camp Oakwood!