About Meriden Community Camp
The Meriden Community Camp’s mission is to provide safe and enriching summer activities for children of the community regardless of socioeconomic status. Every child is welcome. As a small day camp for elementary and middle school-aged children, we strive to create a unique and inclusive environment for all campers through fun and engaging activities on our campus and the local landscape in our beautiful corner of New Hampshire.
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In 2023, camp leadership is eager to return to the normal camp season. We are excited to offer a STEAM camp this year which will focus on fun and learning. Please stay tuned for more details.
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A bit about our history...
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Twenty years ago, the Meriden Community Camp was initiated by a group of parents, educators, and other community members in Plainfield, NH who wished to have a summer camp available for children in the Plainfield/Cornish region of NH. With few other camp options that were both local and affordable for families in these towns, the Meriden Congregational Church offered to house the program at its facilities. Located in the middle of Meriden Village next to Kimball Union Academy and close to the local elementary school, the church provides several acres of outdoor play space and a hall with multiple restrooms, meeting spaces, and a full kitchen. For these small towns without recreation or senior centers, this space has been often used by the broader community, including the housing of Plainfield’s preschool in the 1980s.
Since this time, the camp has been administered by a community-wide committee as a non-denominational program of the Meriden Congregational Church which supports this effort with the use of its facilities, provision of fiscal management, and the hiring and training of counselors. In addition, staff and leadership of the church participate on the administrative committee.
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The camp has a special place in our community. Families look forward to this time because it offers a kind of old-fashioned and home-grown camp experience that values outdoor play, mentoring and modeling of good behavior, and educational values such as consistency, problem solving, and teamwork. We teach campers to make good choices, and we focus all of our “rules” around two key tenets: Be Kind and Be Safe.
Many of our counselors were once our campers themselves, and return to support the program because they want to provide an experience like the ones they once enjoyed. Several counselors are usually pursuing college degrees in education or are local teachers who choose this time to fill their summer months.
The day-to-day administration of the camp is overseen by a camp director, and an assistant director to support the in-person camp experience we hope to offer (as further described below). The director role is filled by a local professional teacher Rosa Sousa. Rosa grew up in Fall River, MA and is currently a Spanish teacher and Title I tutor in Cornish. Rosa is an immigrant from Brazil, who was educated in public schools in Fall River, MA and earned her Bachelor's Degree at Bridgewater State College and her Master's Degree from Providence College. She has been working closely with the camp’s community committee which meets year-round to design and manage all aspects of the camp, from registration to hiring to activity planning and safety protocols.
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