Can't help you with food, but would love to hear more about your camp project.

Sure! It's called Camp Main Idea (get the pun? nudge nudge) and it takes place at the end of the summer on the site of a girl's camp I went to as a child.

It's a non-profit for disadvantaged girls from inner city NY, Boston, CT, and rural Maine. The camp has a really high return rate for both campers and staff, which is rare for this type of program. We teach the girls leadership, coping skills, self-esteem, nature and hiking and canoeing, and all of the normal camp activities like arts and crafts, tennis, horseback riding etc.

It's a great chance for them to leave their sometimes really unpleasant home environments and try new things that they otherwise wouldn't have the means to do. I think the best thing about it is that it gives them a place to start over and make new first impressions; even if a girl was labeled as the "bad kid" at home, she can come to camp, start fresh, and be "the girl who is awesome in the camp play" instead.

The oldest girls are selected to be in a "Leadership" bunk where they focus on teambuilding and responsibility, and then we select a few each year to come back as junior staff. Our hope is that they can continue to lead and come back to the safe camp environment to serve as role models for the incoming girls. This summer we have 5 campers who have graduated to staff, at all different levels (some JC's, some counselors). We also give college scholarships to our graduated campers who we keep in touch with.

For the past 2 summers, we've had a psych PhD student studying the leadership girls and tracking their self-esteem over time, which I think should be a really interesting project.

That was a lot of info! if you want more, check out our website.
If anyone is interesting in volunteering (we can always use more counselors) or donating, email: themainidea@gmail.com

thanks for your interest, rainbaby!

sounds very cool, rmless2.

Commented in your other thread about favorite meals from my days at camp. Just wanted to say what a great program this sounds like. (Need volunteers? I can't this year, but I love girls' leadership/empowerment programs!)

Camp can really be transformative in the ways you describe - I've seen it a lot myself at the small Quaker camp where I worked for 7 summers in college and afterward. It's a truly nurturing environment.

Also, props to you for wanting to feed them well. Kids from backgrounds like yours are inundated with awful food - school lunch programs (bad bad bad), fast food, snack foods...camp is an opportunity to expose kids to new things they might really like, and that includes food. Abundant, tasty, healthy food can be a godsend. We've got that weird situation in the US where kids can be both overfed and malnourished at the same time - as a result of a highly processed, high-carb, monotonous diet. I think it's great that you're thinking about their experience holistically. Food makes a difference.

I am thinking about suggestions - but you might consider saying Italian omelette instead of frittata - sounds less exotic. (^_^)

You might want to get in touch with OSCA, the Oberlin Coop system. There are several coops which have dining facilities and have the same problem every year: how to feed a bunch of people with volunteer labor on a tight budget in a way that's nutritious and with a shallow learning curve. Keep in particular was renowned for meeting those goals and being pretty dang excellent.

One meal I remember seeing worked like this:
For every TWO people:
1 pita (whole wheat if possible), 1 tomato, 1/2 cucumber, 2 oz of softened cream cheese (neufchatel works GREAT - lower in fat), 1/16 red onion, 1T dill, 1/2 t salt, optionally alfalfa sprouts

Multiply by the number of people.
Mix cream cheese dill and salt
Slice vegetables (peel cukes if you want)
Cut pitas in half and open up

Construction (can be done assembly line):
Paint one inside wall of 1/2 pita with 2T or cream cheese mix. Toss in 3 slices of tomato, 4 slices of cuke, a few pieces of red onion, small handful of sprouts. Done.

If you have the budget, for every 8 servings mix in one avocado with the cream cheese.

What a great program .. you are so lucky to be a part of something so important and hands-on. The girls are lucky too. I volunteered a few summers ago at a camp for kids with diabetes. I had the best time .. and would love to do something like this in a few years when my toddler is a little older and healthier. Thanks for the link to the website .. it was good to look at the pictures and read about it. Just .. neat.

Thanks guys!
Miko- we are always looking for volunteers in the future! If you want, we can email about next year etc.

I hope the chef takes at least a few of these ideas, and I hope the girls like the new food. My secret fear is that the chef, who is reluctant to make changes, will try out the recipes I give her and then the girls won't eat it and she'll be all "I Told You So" in my face about it. Worth the risk, though.

I am really excited for Tuesday- I set up an appt at a non-profit farm so I can go check it out and then maybe take each age group of girls on tours there.