Be the Spark - Maggie's Story

When Maggie thinks back, she realizes she’s grown up with the YMCA. Before-and-after-school care moved into swimming lessons, Friday nights as a tween were spent with friends at the Y, and day camp turned into overnight camp at YMCA Wanakita.

Now 20 years-old, Maggie is finding her groove as a Program Specialist for the Junior Section at Camp Chippewa, or “Camp Chip” as she affectionately calls it. 

“We make a joke calling us lifers, like we’ve been here our whole life,” she says of the senior staff who have gone from camper to counsellor to staff over the years. “I’ve seen the camp progress in different ways. Being a camper, then experiencing LIT (leader in training), then becoming a camp counsellor and now senior staff, it’s been a really cool experience.” 

Maggie is friendly and outgoing, but she says she wasn’t always this way. It was YMCA camp that brought her out of her shell. 

“At school I was a very shy kid. I had friends, but I wasn’t super outgoing, and I didn’t try to make new friends,” she says. “At camp I felt like I could try and be outgoing because I didn’t know anybody. It was like a fresh start where I could be anybody that I wanted—or just be myself.” 

As a camper, Maggie says she always wanted to be a counsellor. She loved playing with the children and thought being a leader was “so cool.” 

“I didn’t really try to be a leader in school, so I felt like at camp, I could be. When I went to LIT, I loved it so much because I got to meet people who were my age who had the same passions as me,” she says. “Camp just brings friends so close together.” 

Maggie went on to do LIT 1, 2 and 3, where she says she got to put those leadership skills into practice through a placement with the campers. After this experience, she was encouraged by other counsellors and senior staff to apply to be a camp counsellor. 

“People sometimes say that as a joke, but I truly wanted to be a counsellor. I applied and I got the job and now this is my third summer as a counsellor. It’s great, I love it,” she says. 

Maggie says she was quite shy as a counsellor her first time around but says she has grown over the last 3 years. “I realized that I don’t care if I look silly in front of the kids or the counsellors, because they’re going to remember me as the person who did that and had the courage to do that,” she says. 

“Camp is a judgment free zone. I saw the counsellors being silly and that made me want to be like them,” says Maggie. 

Having spent a year at McMaster studying social sciences Maggie realizes University life is not for her. She wants to do more hands-on work. 

“For whatever reason I had this idea that I couldn’t work outside, and I couldn’t work with kids, that camp couldn’t be my full-time job, but I realize now that it can be,” she says. 

It wasn’t until recently that Maggie came to understand how the YMCA has supported her throughout her life. She has found community at the Y, she has made life-long friends at the Y, and the Y helped her build the confidence that she so easily emanates today.  

YMCA staff ignited the potential in Maggie, and now she is the spark igniting the potential in others.

Thanks for all you do Maggie.

#BeTheSpark
#Shine On