It’s lunchtime at the camp. And as with any summer camp, there are important rules that must be observed.
Among the unofficial rules here: Wait until everyone’s had a turn before going back for seconds; hot dogs are to be enjoyed two per bun; and at mealtime, there must always, always be Taylor Swift playing on the speaker.
As for official rules at Power4Teens, a girls sleepaway camp near Balsam Lake, Ont., only one matters most: This is a judgment-free zone. Negativity and disrespect is never, ever okay. Yes, there are paddleboards, games of capture the flag and roasted marshmallows. But at this small, private summer camp for tweens, there’s also guided meditation. Body positivity workshops. Affirmation exercises, where the girls decorate mirrors with messages like “I can do hard things.” The goal here is on building self-acceptance, confidence and a sense of empowerment.
Pop singalongs are a fixture of life at Power4Teens. Here are some of the songs the campers enjoyed.
Across the country, almost one in five young people (between the ages of 5 and 17) reports “poor or fair” mental health.
These figures have only worsened since the pandemic, with girls especially vulnerable: rates of hospitalization for eating disorders among girls increased by 1.6 times at the start of the pandemic, and they’re two times more likely than boys to be hospitalized with anxiety or depression.
The campers at Power4Teens, who are between the ages of 10 and 13, aren’t immune. Like any other kids, they arrive with their own challenges. But here, the programming is designed to help them meet these challenges.
The campers arrive, too, at a critical point in their young lives. These girls, most of them from the Toronto area, are no longer little kids, but not quite teenagers either.
They’re still as thrilled by a game of tag as they are at TikTok; still talking in excited, hiccupy sentences, rather than eye rolls and grunts.
They sing and dance. Make fart jokes and belly laughs. Form fast and fierce friendships, hugging each other so tightly you fear their hearts might explode.
In the next few months, these same girls will face a tidal wave of change: Many of them are switching schools, forging new friendships and facing decisions that will follow them into adulthood. So this is their refuge, a place to celebrate joy and girlhood – and a last gasp of just-plain-kid-fun before the ascent into adolescence.
Twelve-year-old Sai, lying atop Abby, 13, is in her third year at Power4Teens.
It’s a tiny camp by any standard, just 14 campers crammed into bunk beds and air mattresses in a lakeside cottage. But for Sai, 12, it’s outsized in its impact.
“This camp means everything to me,” she says. (In accordance with camp policy around digital privacy, The Globe and Mail is not using the girls’ last names.)
Sai has round eyes and braids fastened with bright pink ties. She likes social justice and volunteering, and wants to be a psychologist when she grows up. She likes Mean Girls (the original movie, not the reboot), and thrift stores. Today, she’s wearing an oversized yellow Revenge of the Nerds T-shirt. She’s a member of her school’s Black Student Association, and once met Jully Black.
Sai really, really likes camp. This is her third year here. And she’s needed it more this year than any other year.
“There’s a lot of change right now,” she says.
What kind of change? “Everything.”
Each morning begins at “8:30-ish,” with a meditation exercise. The campers lie, feet together, in a circle on the dock. They think of the last time they felt loved. They take deep breaths and feel the sun on their faces.
Then it’s swimming in the lake. You can hear them before you see them, the girls splashing, dancing and scream-singing along to an Olivia Rodrigo song. They’re synchronized swimmers, flailing and splashing in not-so-perfect formation.
There’s no audience to perform for. No phones (which aren’t allowed), or cameras capturing the dance. Nothing to post to social media. It’s just giddy, giggly fun.
Despite their young age, most of the campers here are already on several social-media platforms. Snapchat and TikTok are the most popular. “Instagram is more for my mom,” says Abby, 13. “YouTube Shorts,” meanwhile, is “so Alpha” (as in, Generation Alpha) – which means, according to Trisha, 11, “for, like, eight-year-olds.”
The programming here is “designed to meet the campers where they’re at,” says Shyanne McPherson, director of Power4Teens, and “camp mom.” So that includes workshops on handling the pressure of social media, and understanding the unrealistic expectations it can create.
The camp is kept deliberately small to allow for deeper relationships. (This also means, though, that it’s accessible only to very few, especially given one week of camp costs $1,300.)
Power4Teens's method 'is not rocket science,' Ms. McPherson says, but it does work.
Most of the counsellors delivering the workshops range in age from 17 to 19. Ms. McPherson, meanwhile, also runs day camps and after-school programs, so they all understand the issues the girls face.
“There’s been a huge shift over the past few years,” Ms. McPherson says. Prior to COVID, the main challenges she saw were in navigating relationships, body image and cyberbullying.
Now, she says, “it’s more of a mental-illness crisis. A lot of eating disorders, self-harm. A lot of anxiety and diagnosed depression.”
What they do at the camp “is not rocket science,” Ms. McPherson says. “You can Google it. You can read it in books. But we’re just strong with implementing it – saying, ‘Okay, let’s actually do it. Let’s actually talk about affirmations. Let’s talk about positivity.’”
Ella, a sunny 17-year-old, is one of this year’s counsellors. She was a camper here as a tween, and benefited from the program – especially, she says, the body positivity workshops. And now, as a counsellor, she teaches it.
Despite all of this, she admits, the real world can be hard to ignore. She has more than 700 followers on Instagram.
Still, she says, “I think every single social-media platform has caused me to feel badly about myself.”
She understands innately the world the campers are living in.
“We just try to create a safe space for them,” she says.
After swimming is a workshop on friendships. The girls are sprawled on a rainbow-coloured parachute, towels wrapped around their bathing suits. They lean on their elbows, chins in their palms, passing tubes of Glossier lip balm back and forth as they listen.
The campers take turns sharing their experiences with positive and negative friendships. One girl talks about her closest friend “since kindergarten, so seven years ago,” who spread stories about her. Another describes getting uninvited from a birthday party. They describe friends who’ve hurt them, taken advantage of them or bullied them. Grown-ups who haven’t taken the time to listen, or who told them just to get over it.
Halfway through the workshop, Ms. McPherson joins the group. It’s a rare break for the 32-year-old who is constantly cooking, cleaning or organizing activities. Despite this – and despite the fact that she’s eight months pregnant – she maintains throughout the chaos and cacophony a quiet calm.
Growing up, she says, she didn’t have many female role models. So when she heard about a decade ago about this girls empowerment camp, she wanted to get involved. She began working with Power4Teens as a fitness instructor, and eventually, in 2019, took over the organization.
From the sidelines, Ms. McPherson gently nudges the conversation along. “Would this cause you to evaluate whether this is someone you want to stay friends with?” she asks. “‘Is this someone I can trust?’”
As the workshop winds down, the counsellors discuss coping strategies. Sophie, another camper-turned-counsellor, writes in a journal when her “brain feels full.” Tais, 19, likes to exercise. They suggest finding friends or trusted parents to talk to.
Sophie, a preternaturally wise 17-year-old, closes the session with this: “Your words are one of the most powerful tools you have,” she says. “Being able to express how you feel is a really good thing.”
In the afternoon, the girls drift off into various activities. Outside, a water fight has broken out, and somebody lobs a red balloon at Kaileya, a 13-year-old with pink glasses. “That’s not very empowering!” she shouts. Juliette, a puckish 13-year-old in a tie-dyed T-shirt, cannonballs, fully clothed, into the lake.
Inside, a few of the girls work on friendship bracelets. The floor beneath them is littered with pieces of candy-coloured string.
A few others sprawl out on the couch. Sai, the 12-year-old in the Revenge of the Nerds shirt, is describing last night’s activity. All of the parents had sent a handwritten letter to their daughters, and Ms. McPherson had read them aloud.
She holds up the letter her mom had written. “You are compassionate and considerate,” the letter says. “I pray you continue to strengthen your voice, and really love and accept who you are.” She has a small smile on her face.
Sai reads Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar as camp staffer Bridget, 18, braids her hair. Sai is apprehensive about the year ahead as her parents, who are not together any more, debate where she will live.
Things haven’t been easy over the past few months, Sai says.
Her mom has been offered a job in Chicago, and wants to move with Sai. But her parents aren’t together, and her dad doesn’t want that to happen. They’re fighting in court over it, and Sai is caught in the middle.
“I’m terrified of Grade 8,” she says. There’s so much uncertainty, and so much she can’t control: Where she’ll be living, what school she’ll attend, whether her friends will be there with her.
She’s loved this week at camp, waking up and trying new things. She’s loved the friendships she’s made, and the kindness she’s received from the others.
“It gives me a sense of peace. A sense of balance,” she says.
She holds up the compact mirror she made during one of the workshops, decorated with red glitter and googly eyes.
She’s planning on writing inside it a message that’s been reinforced all week here. It’s a message that, for her, is as timely as it is timeless: “I have a voice.”
