Back to Camp... The summer freedom you remember

Tues, Jan 13th, 2026

Camp provides the summer freedom you remember

Camp = Childhood Freedom

Remember what it felt like to spend all day outside with your friends, knowing you were safe, but feeling completely free and independent (and oh so grown up)?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 80s and 90s coming-of-age movies (my favorite genre honestly) Now & Then, The Mighty Ducks, and The Sandlot, or even the more recent Moonrise Kingdom and how they remind me of camp. All these movies have one thing in common… kids being kids, just learning to navigate the world through their own lens, problem solving on the fly, and finding where they belong.

In The Sandlot the kids scheme to come up with a plan to get their ball back from the Beast, all the while just spending their summer essentially running wild, sleeping out in treehouses, and staying out from sun up until the streetlights come on. But even when the massive dog is chasing them through the neighborhood, it’s never actually dangerous. There’s always safety within earshot. The lifeguard is watching. Someone’s mom is home.

It feels unsupervised to the kids. But it’s fundamentally safe.

That’s the difference. And that’s what camp has going for it.

Kids don’t roam free all summer anymore. They don’t organize their own games as much. Don’t have that feeling of being in their own world while adults exist somewhere in the background.

Camp might be the last place where this still happens.

Where kids get that sensation of independence like choosing their activities, navigating friendships, solving their own problems, but the whole thing is actually held by a structure they can’t quite see.

They feel like they’re living in The Sandlot. We know they’re safe.

At camp, kids feel like they’re running the show, but we know there’s actually lifeguards and adults trained to keep them safe nearby.

At Sloane we’re creating the kind of summer freedom you remember from your childhood - the kind that doesn’t really exist in neighborhoods anymore. 

Instead, it happens at camp.

See you here this summer.

Ru

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