Servant Leadership: A Personal Experience At Camp TEAM

Prior to Camp TEAM I have only had minimal opportunities to work with persons with disabilities but every experience had helped in some form during camp. My grandmother’s brother for example is mentally disabled due to a nasty fall he took when he was very young and I have memories as a young child watching and learning from how my grandma and grandpa at the time interacted with him and most of the time it was positive but I was also watching Rick. I could see noticeable differences and man oh man he loved to sit and watch Godzilla over and over again perfectly content with not moving and most of the time I would watch with him but I could not sit for hours at a time like he could. He would come and stay for a week at a time and I can remember …show more content…
I have always had a very strong need to give and even if it takes everything I have to maintain some sort of strength I try for the people that need it. It takes a lot to give everything and I feel like Camp TEAM really challenged me in more than one respect but I also feel like it was rewarding and I had a more genuine experience than if everything would have gone spectacularly. I love challenges and I believe camp really brought the heat and there was a moment I thought I might lose it but I remained confident and tenacious to the end. I was a cabin leader and from the beginning I just allowed the group members to make their own decisions with little input as to what they should do. I mainly provided direction and facilitated activities when necessary because the majority of my cabin members where more than capable of making their own choices. However, when it came to my buddy, I honestly I felt like I did a horrible job because they seemed to struggle the majority of the time and they hardly communicated with me. It was okay however, because I understood to an extent but I wasn’t prepared for them to challenge me so much. I still tried to provide a servant leadership perspective by allowing my buddy to have space and enjoy camp and she seemed to get along with anyone who wasn’t me which was awesome but felt a little close to home. On the bright side, I really did learn a lot about her and I tried to extend all the love I could without suffocating my buddy. I definitely won’t forget that experience and I find myself reflecting often and the bad stuff melts away because overall, I had a blast and I know my buddy did as