President's Message 2011

Dear Fellow Camp Halers,
It was a challenging winter for all, but spring is now upon us and the 2011 Camping season is just around the corner. Camp Hale & USES need your support more than ever. We must continue to raise the bar with our support of Camp Hale. Please reach out to your fellow Alumni, stop by a Monthly Board meeting, check out our web site, Volunteer at work weekend in June, support the Golf Tournament and attend Alumni weekend in August. There are many opportunities to get involved…Do it for the Camp Hale boys. The time to give back is now!

Many exciting things are happening with CHAA:

• Our annual February Winter Party was a huge success. The event raised $13,844.00… A big thank you to all who supported the event.

• We recently committed to sponsoring $10K in Camper scholarships.

• Mario Perella and Tom Hayes are pumped up about the upcoming
CHAA Golf Tournament in July, Please reach out to them if you would like to participate, Donate or simply volunteer your time.

• Jim Farnham is again preparing our most vital event “Work weekend”. I am sure the Camp will need lots of repairs and clean up after such a rough winter. Please reach out to Jim. We need skilled workers of all kinds and other volunteers so we can get Camp back in tip-top shape. We truly want Camp to be a place we are all very proud of!

Alumni Weekend will be here before we know it. Please reach out to your fellow Alumni and friends. We want to be sure we have a full house for the weekend. Weekend Registration forms are also available on our web site. Get your registration in early!

I am looking forward to another successful Camping season and can’t wait to see you all at the many upcoming events.
Sincerely,
Brent Hayes

Aaron Dushku - "Networking with CHAA"

Halers, in this day and age of sparse career prospects, entrepreneurial job-hunters or savvy professionals need to use all tools at their disposal to promote their skills and get noticed by the right people. Often times a simple suggestion or comment to a hiring committee can come at the perfect time for a candidate to make magic happen. Also, in the absence of formal vacancy announcements, matches can be made based on good personal relationships built and open and ongoing dialog about our professional qualities. These are topics often left untouched around the council fire in August -and for good reason!

Furthermore, CHAA likes to espouse the positive effects that camp has had on its alumni, but hard data on the amount of success stories out there are hard to find. So, sharing your professional credentials with the CHAA network bring multiple benefits to our mission: it allows us to track the success stories of our alumni while also assisting each other to succeed in our lives after camp.

If you don't already have a profile on LinkedIn.com, create one and join the 'Camp Hale Alumni Association (CHAA)' Group. Here you'll get a look at what many are already seeing, the broad range of accomplished individuals that we are.

Opportunities are also here for our older alumni to mentor younger members that you might see growing in your field -great satisfaction can be derived from this as well.

Tap into this network and share in its benefits.

For those of you more interested in connecting socially to your Camp Hale family, CHAA has also established a FaceBook presence to which you are invited to join. Seek either or both opportunities out and stay connected throughout the year!
~ Aaron Dushku

In 2010 - CHAA Collaborates with Providence College

This semester alumnus Mark Elbach has been working with a group of students to raise money for CHAA around the Providence College campus and the City of Providence, RI.

The Events
St. Patrick’s Day week we sold beads throughout campus and the community to help fund our two bigger events. We also were able to get some great raffle prizes to raffle at our events. They included:

• iPod,
• Red Sox tickets,
• autographed sports memorabilia,
• gift certificates,
• Providence College items.

On April 15th at Providence Place UNO’s Chicago Grill.
20% of all lunch and dinner bills were donated to CHAA on this date by anyone who turned in their CHAA / UNO’s slip with their meal.

RESULTS: $275 (percentage of bills) + $213 (raffle) = $488

April 21st at Ladder 133 Bar and Grill
This event was similar to the Winter Party including a DJ, drink specials, and great atmosphere. A $5 cover charge was collected at the door, and all this money directly went towards benefiting CHAA. Red Bull and Narragansett Beer were also generous as they donated items and came to the event to help promotion.

RESULTS: $1,348 (raffle and cover charge)
Total Raised: $1,836.00

In Addition…..
We are currently waiting to hear back from AllState about another donation of $1,000.

Check Out Our Blog: http://itdp.providence.edu/blogs/spring10/mgt401/hopeforhale/Mark Elbach

Editor’s note: Mark is one of our hardworking younger members: son of Elias, and grandson of Tony Costa.

Message from Jerrel Cox, Camp Hale Director, Spring 2010

Dear Camp Hale Family,
As you all know, the 2010 summer season is fast approaching. We are excited to say that we have to date filled almost 50% percent of our slots! This year, we are concentrating our efforts on targeting youth from the South End and Lower Roxbury neighborhoods. We have been distributing fliers to schools, housing developments, and businesses all throughout these neighborhoods. This has brought many new families who are interested and enrolling their children in CAMP HALE!

This year our agency has put a special emphasis on positive living, academic achievement and attainment, and economic success. Camp Hale has the unique advantage of taking children out of the urban environment and away from its negative influences and into our own peaceful place. This summer we will intentionally create a program that will inspire children to treat others with respect, set goals for
themselves, make healthy decisions, and maintain positive attitudes. The core traditions of the camp experience will be the same, our goals this summer will be to give the staff the training that they will need to create an environment that will immediately impact our young people. We want to not only be a memorable place for each camper, but one that teaches life lessons and skills that the children can use long after camp.

How can you help? You already have! The Camp Hale Alumni Association Board has made $5,000.00 available for sponsorships for this year’s families. Last year we used a similar amount of money to fill camp and this year we are looking forward to doing the same thing. Parents are already applying for sponsorships and learning more about the Camp Hale Alumni Association. We are very appreciative of the money, hard
work, and time that you have donated so far, but there is still more that can be done.

We all know how long camp has been in existence and which buildings need work. With each new season, camp faces new issues and we want to be proactive in making sure that camp is well maintained and safe for our campers. Please continue to show your support by donating and sharing your resources with USES and the CHAA Board to ensure the success and growth of CAMP HALE!!! WHOO YAH!!!

Thank you very much!
Sincerely,
Jerrell Cox
Director of Camp Hale and Out of School Time Programs
jcox@uses.org

A message from Mark (GAZ) Gaznick

My name is Mark Gaznick, and as many of you know I have been collecting pictures of Camp Hale for sometime now to produce an archive of camps past events and people. Camp maybe small in stature, but it is part of American history being the oldest running camp of its kind in the US. I feel we need to catalog as much as possible to preserve the people and events that make it such the wonderful place it is today.

I have been working on a website to display these photos for all to see and share. But because of life's little snafus this has been taking more time than I thought. So I created a Flickr page to get some of the photos up so people can download and share.

Thank you for your time, and enjoy. As always, please feel free to
send me, Bobby Nicholas, or Joe Sharmatta any pictures you would like to add to the archive. Our email addresses are located on the CHAA website. And remember we would not have an archive if it wasn't for people who care, just like you.

Thank you again,
Mark Gaznick

Bobby Nicholas's CHAA Archive Initiative and Appeal

My Fellow Alumni,

I hope this letter finds you all in good health. For those that might not know me, my name is Bobby Nicholas, and last April I was appointed as the CHAA historian. The position entails many exciting jobs, one of which is to Archive Camp Hale memorabilia.

The purpose of this mailing is two-fold.

One to invite you to an event on Saturday February 3rd 2007,at Clery's in the South End (more to come). USES President Ashley McCumber has graciously donated space, as well as showcases, so we can create a Camp Hale rotating memorabilia museum.

This brings me to the second purpose of the event, we are asking you bring any Camp memorabilia you might have, so that we may archive it and if you wish, put it on display for a short time period, until which time the item will be returned to you.

We are not asking for you to part with your items, but to give us a chance to record our rich history by way of archiving these items. We are looking into having a special booth set up, which will allow us to document, and record your memorabilia.

As time draws nearer to this event, we will provide more details, with regards to time, and so on. As your historian, I am available to you and would love to hear from all of you. Please contact me with any questions regarding the above event or anything else that might be related to our rich history. I welcome any help, ideas, and thoughts. I hope to see a huge turnout and if you cannot make it, but would like to provide an item for display, we can arrange to possibly pick it up.

Thank you for your time, and please note my contact info.

Regards,
Bobby
e-mail-elah1991@msn.com

Board Meetings - Held on the first Monday of each month at the Harriet Tubman House in the South End.  We encourage all who are members of the alumni, or friends of Camp Hale, to attend these meetings.  Be a part of the organization that helps keep the experience alive.  Contact any member of the CHAA Board of Directors to reserve your spot at the next meeting.