Three summers ago, Jaylin first came to Camp Timberlane through Camp for All Kids’ Four Star Fellowship simply looking for something new.
Now, as a rising senior and a third-year Four Star Fellow, Jaylin noticed something changed.
“When I first came here, everything was new to me,” he says. “I was really fresh into it.”
This summer feels different.
Jaylin says he has become more willing to talk to people he normally wouldn’t – and more willing to step outside his own comfort zone.
“I usually don’t talk a lot,” he explains. “But coming from here, and then going back to Chicago, I see myself speaking to people I don’t know way more than I usually would.”
That may sound like a small change, but for Jaylin, it’s anything but.
At camp, the environment feels different. The pressure is lower. People are more open. And, as Jaylin puts it, “everybody’s on the same page.”
That gives him the freedom to be more open, too.
He’s also challenged himself through activities he never would have imagined doing that he says have made him “more confident now.”
And that confidence is beginning to change the way he sees his role in the camp community.
He now sees himself as someone who can be an example for younger Fellows – a quiet leader who can help others feel comfortable trying something new.
For Jaylin, camp has become a place where he can practice being a leader, and be more open, more confident, and more willing to take chances. Then, he brings those lessons home with him.
That’s one of the most powerful things about Four Star Fellowship: a one-week experience changes how you show up the other 51 weeks of the year.
“I plan on keep coming back every year,” Jaylin says with a smile.
That’s the kind of growth that happens when a young person is given the opportunity to go beyond what they already know, discover what they’re capable of, and carry that confidence forward.
For Jaylin, it started with taking a chance on one new experience.
Three summers later, he’s still discovering where that first step can take him.
Thank you for helping make opportunities like Jaylin’s possible.
