In 1996, I was pretty rebilious. My friends, at the time, consisted of "druggies", promiscuous girls and school drop-outs and I was slowly on that road myself. While I was smart, my grades started dropping because I was missing school at least once a week. I was offered drugs frequently, but I just stuck to my cigarettes and alcohol. I was caught several times that year skipping school or smoking in some hiding place, but I didn't care. Summer came, and with it more freedom. I was allowed to go to the park and hang out with my friends or even walk across town to my father's house. Looking back, I realize how unsafe a lot of things I did that summer were, but at the time I was having a blast. My friends had planned a day for me to finally become "one of them" by getting me to do drugs that I had previously rejected so many times before. The day was planned for the following week, when my friend's brother could get some more. The only problem was, I was supposed to go to camp. Ugh! Camp! That was totally for little kids. Clearly, not for me. I was a super cool cigarette smoking, booze drinking, school-skipping 13 year old, who had way better things to do than go to camp. My mother signed me up for adventure camp, which she insisted sounded "very cool" from their brochure. Three days later I was at Base with a bunch of kids I did not know. It only took me a day or two to snap out of my oppositional behavior and realize that this place is different. These people are different. The new cool for me was wearing duct tape on various articles of clothing and stealing mayonaise from the kitchen. I learned faith and spirituality is much more than a church. I learned that there are different ways to relate to people other than doing drugs. Mostly importantly, I learned one week at a summer camp can really change a person's life. When I returned home I did not return the phone calls of my friends. Instead I was too busy writing letters to the friends I had made at camp. I started attending church of my own free will again and I made new friends whose idea of cool was being on the honor roll.

Because of camp, I firmly believe that I would have dropped out of school and become a drug addict. Because of camp, I have broken the cycle in my family of addictions and high school drop outs. Today I am in the process of getting two masters degrees in counseling and music therapy to help emotionally and behaviorally troubled youth. It is heartbreaking to me that Bement might never re-open. I can't help but wonder who is going to help the kids like me? I can only pray that they have resilience and support from other resources, and that one day Bement might open its doors again.