The Louis August Jonas Foundation’s mission is to develop in promising young people from around the world a lifelong commitment to compassionate and responsible leadership for the betterment of their communities and the world. We do this at Camp by fostering an appreciation of both diversity and our common humanity, expanding intellectual horizons and heightening artistic sensibilities. Our mission is woven into all activities which develop leadership abilities and self-reliance. Camp offers and demonstrates a philosophy of living to serve society through the pursuit of humanitarian goals.

LAJF and Camp Rising Sun want to highlight how Camp impacts the lives of our alumni. We are excited to feature our alumna Melina (‘18) from Argentina. Below is a video Melina made as a class assignment to teach her classmates about Camp. Her words that follow express what the video project and Camp meant to her.

I go to ORT, which is a school with different specializations, and I am in the mass media track. We study photography to filmmaking. In one of my subjects, where we make and edit videos, we had this class assignment to do a 5-minute documentary about a topic we liked. We had to do some interviews and look for information. Since I knew I was going to Camp, I talked to the school and decided to make it about CRS. I knew it was going to be an incredible idea. So, I asked for the camp´s authorization to film the video during the summer. However, I had to do it by myself as I am from the Southern Hemisphere and had missed plenty of classes while at camp. The school was really happy about this opportunity and was really supportive. My teachers really liked it and my classmates could not believe it. From the first time I told them, they were amazed with this opportunity but also because it is not common in Argentina.

I hope in this video that everybody will see what Camp is about, and see how close we can get to know each other. That at Camp we learn about the world we live in and the opportunities we have. Going to Camp is a unique and amazing experience, and I want to show that through this video.

I am, and always will be, grateful for having the opportunity of doing this video, of filming in camp and attending the program. I miss it every second and watching this video could not make me happier.

To me, Camp became part of my regular life, of my family and heart. I got to know amazing girls and staff. Everybody was accepting even when we disagreed. We learned how to live one month with people from different backgrounds and countries, without having much communication with our parents. I learned to appreciate my life, the opportunities I have, and myself. It changed the way I see the world and the way I live in a really good way. I got better at English and saw how useful it is. I learned things that I would never have thought of, for example, how to sing the happy birthday song in many languages and how to do stage combat. Now Camp is a really important part of my life as a teenager. I think this will help me to see that I can do things by myself and that I don’t need to depend on somebody else. Also that even in the worst and best moments, I should listen to myself and ask for help because I know that I have more than 80 friends all around the world to help and support me.

I would really like to thank everybody for making this possible, the staff, the camp directors and my camp sisters.