After graduating from Boston College this past spring, Mack Kepner didn’t have to look far for his next step. He came back home to Wilton and geared up for a fun, action-packed summer at camp.
Kepner’s journey at the Wilton YMCA summer camp, Camp Gordyland, began the summer after his senior year of high school. He got a job as a counselor for sixth-graders, a role he did not take lightly. Responsible for 12 campers with the help of one co-counselor, Kepner worked not just to keep the kids safe and occupied, but to immerse them in the joy of summer camp.
“There’s been instances of campers who, you know, might not get along with everybody in the group,” Kepner said in an interview. “And I took it as my responsibility to connect with them, become friends with them, and then help them get entwined with the other people in the group so they can make friends.”
Kepner continued to work with energy and dedication the following summer as a counselor for fourth-graders.
“I was mainly focused on creating a culture in our group where everybody felt like they belonged,” he said.
Halfway through his second summer, Kepner got promoted to head staff. The following summer, he became the assistant third- and fourth-grade director at Camp Free To Be (one of three camps divided by age group within Camp Gordyland). Last summer he became the Free To Be director, a role he has continued this year. But Kepner is not the only one to work his way up at Camp Gordyland.
“One of the beauties of this job is that so many people start out as campers, and then come to be, you know, a counselor training — a CIT — and then become a counselor and then a director,” he said.
The result is a staff full of Gordyland regulars, many of whom have spent summers together year after year, which makes for a strong sense of community.
“My first campers — one of them is now a counselor, a bunch of them are CITs,” Kepner said. “And so it’s so cool to see their growth over time, and just to see them, you know, blossom into the people that they’re becoming.”
As the Free To Be director, Kepner continues to connect with campers, but also administers counselor trainings and oversees staff throughout the summer.
“If the staff are feeling good and happy and having fun, then the kids are going to be having fun too,” he said.
The most rewarding part of Kepner’s job is not working with staff — or even making campers smile, which he does with such ease. It is instilling in them kindness, strength and resilience.
One way he encourages this growth is by using cognitive reframing techniques. “Helping them learn to say, instead of saying, ‘I can’t,’ teaching them to say ‘I can’t yet,'” he explained. “Or teaching them that they can do hard things.”
Under Kepner’s leadership, camp becomes about more than inflatables and ropes courses — though there are plenty of fun activities like those at Camp Gordyland. It is about long-lasting friendship and meaningful personal growth for the kids who spend their summers there.
“Not only are they going to be safe, not only having fun, but our goal is to help everybody become great people in the future,” Kepner said.
Next year, when he heads to Boston University for graduate school to study counseling and sports psychology, Kepner believes he will have his summers spent at the Wilton Y to thank for his strong communication skills with people of all ages. But more than that, working with campers has shaped his character.
“Learning how to help them become better people has, in turn, made me be a better person too.”
Congrats and Well Played Mack !!
Hey Mack, Great job – I wouldn’t expect anything less from you! Best of luck going forward – we need more people like you!