BDN reporter moonlights as counselor at Tanglewood 4-H Camp
A Bangor Daily News reporter published an article about her day as a counselor at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Tanglewood 4-H Camp and Learning Center in Lincolnville. The article is part of a BDN series that spotlights important but often underappreciated summer work that occurs along the state’s midcoast. Tanglewood 4-H Camp was founded in the early 1940s as an all-girls camp, but the university began leasing the land from the state in the early 1980s, the BDN reported. It was built as an ecology-centered camp, where young people could have the weeklong camp experience while learning how to be responsible stewards of nature, according to the article. Campers learn how to compost, recycle and generally how to be good stewards of Earth, said Jessica Decke, summer program coordinator at Tanglewood. Part of the value that comes from attending are tangible skills that campers learn, including how to build and cook over a fire, but equally important are the “intangibles,” Decke said, “which come from living in a community.” “To build that sense of independence, to teach and inspire youth to be effective in caring, citizens of the Earth.”