Message from the Director, Jon Levin

Last Spring my wife Martha and I decided to take advantage of the housing boom and sell our house outside of Chicago. We made the decision to live at Camp Chi for this year. We wake up every day to views of the trees and wander the paths and dirt roads of camp. We enjoy the quiet, but after a while I start to miss the laughter, sounds of joy and other noises of summer. As we approach the start of a New Year, it begins to feel like camp isn’t so far away and we will soon be joined by hundreds of fun filled campers and staff for another Chi Summer. We want to make sure we serve as many campers as possible and our campers are registering to come back. For any families that haven’t signed up yet, you should jump on our website and your campintouch accounts and sign up. Spots are filling fast and some are already on waitlists. Many 2^nd session and Mini 2 groups, especially in our younger age groups have waitlists or just a few spots left. Every age group has less than 10 spots left. And, 1^st session is filling as well, with only a couple of age groups that have 10 spots and most with less than 5. Don’t miss out!

Being here at camp also lets me see the improvements we are working on throughout the year. While we want many things to stay the same, to ensure our staff and campers return to the comfortable home away from home we all love, we always strive to grow, improve and make camp even better. This year we will be working on improvements in Noar, resurfacing the Courtside pool, painting and putting new roofs on some of our cabins and several other projects. Sabra cabins all were painted this Fall. I will update everyone this Spring when we can see enough to take some pictures to share. While we all know it is the people that make Chi special, we are working to keep making the place better each year.

One other note to share. This past Thanksgiving a good portion of our family that resides in the midwest (and our sister from Phoenix) joined us at Chi for the weekend. My brother Ron and his family who all spent many, many years at Chi, our nephew Matthew and his family, who are also Chi alumni, and our oldest and his family all gathered for the weekend. We shared a great thanksgiving meal and talked about many of our shared Camp Chi experiences. Of the 20 (ish) people that were old enough to have been to camp, at least one person at our Thanksgiving meal had been at Chi every year, without exception, for the past 50 years. When people ask me “Why Chi” that is one of the main reasons – the family connections we have to Chi means a great deal. I know those types of connections are shared by many of our families with 2,3 even 4 generations of Chi campers. As the 3^rd generation of our families begin their Chi journeys, it is comforting to know our tradition will continue for years to come.