Our two newest agencies, Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School lead by Tom O'Connell and Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, lead by Eric Benzel, embarked on a weekend camping trip from October 18-20, 2013. The two groups departed from their respective Brooklyn campuses at 4:30 pm and arrived in New Jersey just in time for the last rays of light to guide students to their rustic campsite at Camp Glen Gray, 15 minutes west of Mahwah in the Ramapo Mountains. Students split into teams to immediately start cooking, setting up camp, and gathering firewood to prepare for the night ahead. We ate a delicious spaghetti dinner cooked on Coleman dual-burner stoves and roasted s'mores before having a 'rules of the camp ' meeting, shouting out some outstanding workers, and heading to bed.

The next morning, we woke up our student breakfast crew, who cooked eggs and sausage while everyone prepared for our big hike. We split students into strategic hiking groups with students from different schools and had a pre-hike meeting with each group to go over hiking safety, water consumption, blister checks, and navigation. After electing a lead, sweep, navigator, and toastmaster for each group, we set off on the trail for about four miles out of camp, where we found a beautiful overlook to stop for lunch. The groups stayed out of earshot, but relatively close to one another throughout the hike. Student navigators lead us different directions on the way back to camp and we celebrated with a post-hike victory circle of shoutouts, highs, and lows.

While some students cooked for the next hour, others completed their homework and studied with some help from their teachers who had come along as leaders. After amazing tacos, we played a very enthusiastic game of 'celebrity' by the light of our fire, roasted more s'mores, then went on a long night hike into the woods. A late rain shower sent us all to bed at just the right time and soaked the campsite overnight.

While our tents dried the next morning, Colleen gave students a leaf and tree identification lesson and students eagerly ran through the woods looking for different species of tree's leaves to share with the group. After our morning lesson, we did a great reflection circle to acknowledge all of the people who demonstrated leadership and helped other people during the trip. We packed all of our gear and took two big trips to the vans to leave camp around 11 am and we arrived back in Brooklyn by1:00 pm to return our vans and unpack gear.