Friday, July 29, 2011

Friday, July 29, 2011

All of a sudden it is Friday and another week has quickly gone by here at Camp Good Days! I just returned home last night from spending most of the week at our beautiful Recreational Facility, where we are in the midst of the two-week Doing A World Of Good Program. It has been so nice to get up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and sit on the deck of my cabin, watching the world wake up and looking out over Keuka Lake and thinking that there isn’t a more beautiful place to start each day.



Our Doing A World Of Good Program is in full swing now, with campers and their chaperones here from Mexico, Bahamas, Germany, Turks & Caicos, Dominican Republic, and Ethiopia. Our international guests were joined by one group of American campers this week, who will head home today and a new group of American campers will begin their week on Monday.



We have had a week full of fun and exciting visitors and activities. On Tuesday, the campers had the chance to meet and learn some basketball skills from Rochester Razor Sharks Team President and Co-Owner, Orest Hrywnak, Head Coach, Rod Baker, Assistant Coach, Chris Iversen and Guard and All-time Razor Sharks Leading Scorer, Keith Friel. The Razor Sharks have been and continue to be great friends to the children at Camp Good Days and great supporters of all that we do and we thank them for taking the time to come out and spend the morning with our campers! Also on Tuesday, I had the pleasure of welcoming a group of visitors from the Syracuse and Central New York area. I showed them around the facility, they had the chance to meet the campers, volunteers and staff, and it is always nice to see some old friends and be able to share Camp Good Days with some new friends.



On Wednesday, we filled up three buses and took everyone to Watkins Glen International Raceway, where we were the special guests of Trackmasters, Inc. Each summer, children from Camp Good Days are invited to this very special event, which is held in memory of Michael Francesco, Jr. who was a shareholder in Trackmasters, Inc. and a major supporter of the event and passed away suddenly on April 17, 2000 at the age of 41.



The campers had the chance to see a variety of sports cars up close and personal including, BMWs, Corvettes, Porsches, Aston Martins, and more. The campers got to ride in the different cars with the drivers and then everyone had lunch together. We have truly been blessed that Trackmasters, Inc. continues to invite our campers to be a part of this special day. It is a wonderful opportunity for these children to be able to participate in this exciting and thrilling event and it is always one of the highlights for the campers who have the chance to attend.



Check out these links, http://www.the-leader.com/features/x1704352378/Camp-Good-Days-kids-take-a-ride-at-WGI and http://centralny.ynn.com/content/all_news/southern_tier/551450/camp-good-days-visits-wgi/ for some great stories about our visit to Watkins Glen and keep checking out our website, www.campgooddays.org, and our facebook page, www.facebook.com/CampGoodDays79 for photos from our trip!



On Thursday, I did an interview with Henry Dormann from WETM-TV for his Friends & Neighbors Show, which airs on Saturday mornings at 9:00 AM. I then spent some time with a group of visitors from the Buffalo and Western New York area, who like the Syracuse area visitors, were able to see the facility and meet the many campers, volunteers and staff. I then headed over to Keuka College, our neighbor across the lake, and had the pleasure of meeting with the new President, Jorge Diaz-Herrera. We had a great conversation and I truly look forward to working with him in the months and years to come. Camp Good Days has long enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the many administrators, faculty, staff and students from Keuka College and in fact, Melissa Cappelluti, our Program Assistant & Ropes Course Instructor is a graduate of Keuka.



This morning I had an interview with Virginia Butler at YNN Rochester to share some of the updates about CANCER MISSION 2020 and the upcoming Congressional District Cancer Summits. For all of the up-to-date information on the Congressional District Cancer Summits, including dates, locations, guest speakers and more, please visit www.cancermission2020.com and as always, please be sure to sign the CANCER MISSION 2020 Petition and share the site with your network of contacts. We can only succeed in this important initiative to end cancer by the end of the decade, if we all come together in a cooperative and collaborative way!



This afternoon I am going to head out to Waterloo and meet our international campers and chaperones at the Waterloo Premium Outlets where they will be getting in some shopping and dinner. Tomorrow, they will spend some time at Eastview Mall and then we will all head to Frontier Field for a Picnic Dinner and to watch the Rochester Red Wings take on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.



We are looking forward to welcoming a new group of campers on Monday, as well as to having the Rochester Rhinos Soccer Team, led by Head Coach, Bob Lilley, visit for lunch and some soccer games!



Stay tuned for the full update on next week’s exciting activities and events and I wish you all a healthy, happy and safe weekend!

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