Banquet theme is Tangled - THE DANBEE BEELINE · waterskiing. He can stay up for a while and he also is good at wakeboarding. But something even cooler is that sometimes he waterskis

August 2017

Banquet theme is Tangledby Jackie Barbanel 10th Grade

Like the theme of Tangled, Wel-B-Yon ‘17’s decision to make that movie the theme of this year’s banquet was a journey of discovery that began in the town of

Montville, New Jersey.On April 31, Wel-B-Yon ‘17 gathered in Montville to discuss leagues, clothing, camp

sisters, but most importantly; banquet at the WBY sleepover. The banquet theme is “the secret of the summer” decided and voted on by WBY.

All throughout the course of the school year our age group had been brainstorming themes. We thought of countless movies, plays, etc. After many people voiced that they would like a princess movie as the banquet, Tangled came to mind and a majority of WBY was hooked.

It was not decided until the night of the Wel-B-Yon sleepover. Karen took an easel and all 38 of us took turns giving banquet ideas despite our often talk of Tangled previously. When it was time to vote the options were The Little Mermaid, Wreck it Ralph and, lastly, Tangled. Any one of those movies would have made excellent banquets, but the way we narrowed it down was by the meaning and moral of the story. Wel-B-Yon, key staff, and the directors loved the idea of a banquet theme based on going outside your comfort zone. It is a story of self-discovery and venturing into a world of unknowns.

From then on, we studied the movie. We learned all of the main characters, what they wear, how they act, and the meanings of the things they say. On the second day of camp, Charlie Drover, Danbee’s art director, broke us up into Banquet Committees, which consist of rolling, drawing/tracing, painting, 3D/Costume,

What’s Inside

Jen soars highJen Rochefort, Danbee’s new gymnastics director, took over for Jerry Nelson, whose stint at Danbee lasted 10 years. Jen was a star gymnast under Jerry at Southern Connecticut State University and Jerry was instrumental in her becoming his successor. Page 4

Issue 2

Reader NoteThis second issue of The Beeline contains 28

pages of insightful stories comings and goings around camp from girls in the Journalism and Media Program. Twenty-eight pages is a record for The Beeline and speaks volumes about the dedication the campers in the journalism program have to telling stories. These girls just love to write and this issue is their showcase.

Charlie Reiss wrote a nice feature about Charley Drover, Danbee’s art director. Sasha Sinel provides a first person perspective on participating in her first talent show. Samantha Port outlines 10 tips on being happy at camp.

Of particular note is the special report about how Danbee campers use social media when home. The Beeline distributed a survey to all campers and the results provide a fascinating snapshot of the role that social media plays in the lives of campers. The report provides a breakdown by age group.

Sally Brouhard tackled the complex topic of bullying over social media. She interviewed key people at Danbee who have experience dealing with the issue of bullying. This includes Danbee director Jay Toporoff who offers valuable insight.

We hope you enjoy reading this final issue of The Beeline for 2017 as much as the campers in the Journalism and Media program enjoyed writing it for you.

Happy Reading! Gary Hook, Program Director Adrianna Stalworth, Program Instructor

(continued on page 2)

The BeeLine Page 2August 2017

menu, and layout. Every day during fifth period committees meet and discuss our goals for the week or day.

I expected the whole process to be really stressful and, to be honest; I didn’t have much motivation to work on it the first week of camp. But come the second week when murals started to be painted, I found my new home in the banquet room sitting on the floor and painting backgrounds. The whole set up is so organized that once you really get into it, working on banquet can be both relaxing and rewarding.

Banquet is so amazing because it brings the whole Wel-B-Yon together to create one last hoorah for the last night of camp. Tangled wasn’t just a theme to my Wel B Yon. It was a dream come true making this banquet and knowing by the time you are reading this, WBY

‘17 already will have spent the day decorating the mess hall and thoroughly

succeeding.

Banquet theme is Tangled (continued)

The Leagues competitions lasted all summer as the Americans

and Nationals went head-to-head each Monday in a series of events to determine the eventual overall Leagues winner.

As these things often do, it came down to Song Fest, the final event that was staged in the theater as both teams, each dressed in white, marched in lockstep in complete silence to take up their places. Taking turns, each team performed cheers and songs in unison as the judges, dressed as characters from “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, made notes and awarded points.

At the conclusion of the competition the teams waited in silence, despite the best efforts of key staff that performed a skit designed to make the campers laugh. Then the signal was given and the silence was broken as campers raced

toward the stage waiting for turning of the traditional watermelon to reveal the overall winner.

Within moments Mike Snodgrass walked out on stage cradling the watermelon. Slowly he turned it over and as the letter “A” carved into the flesh of the melon came into view, the Americans erupted in cheers and screams of delight. The Nationals, who had competed hard, showed their disappointment.

The Americans had the going into Song Fest, but not by enough to guarantee victory. The Nationals won Song Fest with a score of 227 to 195 for the Nationals,

a gain of 32 points. But that was not enough to overtake the Americans who finished with an overall score of 2,255 points to the Nationals 2,211 points, a margin of 44 points.

The evening ended on festive note for everyone as they gathered in the mess hall for the tradition ice cream party.

Leagues winner finished strong


This year there are some new people here at Danbee, like Jack

Absolom. Jack works at the lake and teaches waterskiing. He is from Australia and lives in the “country,” about six hours from Sydney. This is his first year at Danbee and he is very excited to be here. His exact words were, “I love Danbee!”

Are there any camps like Danbee in Australia? Jack is asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “They don’t have anything like this is Australia.”

Jack started waterskiing when he was age three and has been doing it for about 16 years. Jack said he loves waterskiing and does it back home.

“My family owns a boat back home, so I did it a lot back in Australia,” he said.

But he also does other hobbies other than waterskiing. For example, he likes football, fishing, camping and basketball. Jack also thinks working in the gym would have been interesting.

“I would have liked to work at gymnastics,” he said. “That would be cool.”

But he loves to work at lake. Back in Australia Jack works at his

dad’s club as a bartender and he also works on a farm. Jack is amazing at waterskiing. He can stay up for a while and he also is good at wakeboarding. But something even cooler is that sometimes he waterskis with only his bare feet. He was influenced to try barefoot waterskiing by his uncle.

“My uncle was good at waterskiing with bare feet” Jack said, “so he wanted me to try it.”

So, he did. Cool right?

Jack: “Nothing like Danbee in Australia”by Harmony Bowes 6th Grade


When Jerry Nelson did not return this year as Gymnastics Direc-

tor, everyone was disheartened to hear the news. No one wanted to see the familiar face of ten Danbee summers go. But for Jen Rochefort, this opportunity to be Danbee’s gymnastics director was a whole new adventure. Jerry, who was Jen’s gymnastics coach for four years in college, was instrumental in getting her this opportunity.

Jen Rochefort was born and grew up in Melbourne, Georgia, but moved to Connecticut after being recruited by Jerry to do gymnastics at Southern Connecti-cut State University, an NCAA Division II school. Growing up in a family of three brothers, Jen always was active. She be-came involved with gymnastics because of the influence of her neighbors.

“My neighbors actually did it for fun,” she said, “and they said you should sign your daughter up to do it for a summer class. So, I just started out in a summer class and just kept going from there.” She was 4-years-old when her mother signed her up.

Jen said it was pretty easy to pick up at the beginning, but as you get better and move up through the levels it gets harder.

“I wasn’t as naturally talented as some of the other girls,” Jen recalls, “but I feel like I was one of the hardest workers.”

Jen said there were moments when she thought about quitting the sport.

“Especially in eighth and ninth grade is when it gets really tough,” she said, “because you want to be part of all the activities in school. But with gymnastics you can’t really do that because we prac-tice so much. It is really hard to find that balance between gymnastics and school and friends. It’s kind of like an identity crisis almost. You’re trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be. So, definitely during those time I wanted to quit.”

To become good at gymnastics re-quires a lot of time in the gym. Jen said

that when she reached Level Eight at the age of 10 she would practice 20 hours a week, which was five days a week for four hours a day. She did that all the way to college and then in college it dropped to 16 to 18 hours a week.

Other than her family, perhaps one person who knows Jen best is Jerry Nelson. When he and wife, Joanne, Danbee’s jewelry director, decided they would not return to Danbee, Jerry worked with Jay and Mark to put Jen into the gymnastics position.

“I am so happy that she took my place at Danbee,” Jerry said in a phone inter-view.

Jerry met Jen when she was a senior in high school, offered her scholarship dollars and she accepted. Jen also was accepted into Honors College, which takes only 40 students out of the in-coming freshman class each year. The courses are harder, Jerry said, and Jen was a scholar athlete each of her years in college.

Jerry said Jen was one of the best athletes he’s had.

“She’s a national level competitor,” he said. “She’s a tenacious competitor. She also is just a great kid and was an inspiration for our team.”

He said Jen was an all-around ath-lete, meaning she had more than just her athletic ability. She had confidence in herself, strong leadership skills and a great personality.

“I’ve been doing this 14 years as a college coach,” Jerry said, “and there have only been three girls elected captain as a junior and a senior by the team and the coaches and Jen was one of those

girls.”Jen specialized in bars and beam,

which is where she was most consistent. During the 2016 season, her regional qualify average score was 9.6 out of 10 on the bars. For Jen, jerry said, she was competing with her team and cared more about the team.

“She’s a natural teacher and a natural coach,” Jerry said. “She is very unique.”

The admiration and respect is mutual and comes through when she speaks about her time at Southern Connecticut State University.

“Jerry was like a dad to me all four years, so it was awesome,” she said. “Even my assistant coaches, too, were like second moms. You grow really close with your coaches and teammates, so I’m really glad I chose to go there and do gymnastics.”

Jen has hopes of becoming a teach-

Jen soars high in Danbee’s gymby Claire Gavin 9th Grade


Jen soars high (continued)

er. She studied elementary education in college and said she loves being around kids and teaching them, especially the Honey Bumble age. But she also wants to keep gymnastics around and aspires to come back to Danbee in the summer. The Danbee spirit is the main reason she fell in love with camp. She likes the op-portunity for girls to try a variety of new things during the weeks here.

She feels being a teacher would be the perfect job to have because “I could have summers off and come back here and coach gymnastics. Also, (in school) when I’m done teaching for the day I

probably will still coach gymnastics.”Much of her life has been spent in

gymnastics from the time she was four until she left college at age 22. During that time, Jen says, she has learned so much from the sport.

“It teaches you so much,” she said. “At six you don’t realize it, but it teaches you how to work hard, how to get along with other people if you are on a team, how to respect your elders because you are respecting your coaches and listening to them. When you become competitive it teaches you time management at such an early age because we go to school and then we go to the gym and by the time you get home it’s eight thirty, nine o’clock and you still have homework to do. I think it is really important for all kids to get involved with it (gymnastics) when they are young because it does teach you so much more than gymnastics skills, it teaches you life skills.”

First time Leagues was new and funby Bethany Karlinsky 4th Grade

It’s my first year at Danbee and Leagues is something new for me.

I’m not a sports girl, but Leagues is still fun. All of camp is divided into two teams. There are Americans and Nation-als. The American colors are red and blue (mostly red) and the National colors are green and white (mostly green). I am on the Americans team.

Some of my favorite games are kick-ball and capture the flag.

To me leagues are different from color wars at any old day camp. At Danbee you put on crazy garments and face paint. At my old day camp you wore blue or white and that’s all you were allowed. At Danbee if you’re not good at sports you can cheer on the sidelines and still earn spirit points for your team. Another good thing about leagues is the Wel-B-Yon always help teach you the cheers and camp songs.

One of my favorite things about

leagues is that after competitions are over no one talks big, or brags about it and it doesn’t stop friendships. Also, you get pizza and soda. Leagues takes place every Monday when the whole camp does a series of games and later that week we find out the scores. For exam-ple, after the first week the Nationals had the lead, but after the second week the Americans had the lead. The Americans had the lead after the third week, too.


Danbee meals are not normal meals, as all the campers know.

Danbee meals are very special because at the end of every meal we play music and dance. People’s perspectives about the after-meal tradition are different and a little alike.

For instance, when it comes to the music, people have definite favorites.

Aerin Cantor a Yellow Jacket counsel-or, prefers the song “C’est La Vie.” Both Morgan Bernstein and Kara Grossier enjoy the song “Me Oh My.” Kara also likes songs from the movie “Moana.”

Each was asked whether they thought dancing in the mess hall had changed, or improved through the years. Aerin said the music has changed, but she prefers the older songs. Kara also said the songs have changed, and Morgan said there are more songs and different dances.

Of course, all that loud music can turn quiet meals into loud ones. So, which do they prefer – loud meals or quiet meals? Aerin said she enjoyed loud meals be-cause she loves spirit. Kara said LOUD MEALS! While Morgan said she likes loud meals because everybody’s happy.

In the mess hall you will find people

dancing alone and dancing with other people. Aerin, Kara and Morgan mutu-ally agreed they all enjoy dancing with friends! Aerin said she loves dancing with her campers. Morgan said she loves dancing with her bunk, and Kara said she loves dancing with Wel-B-Yon and anyone else.

Everybody’s first time dancing in the

mess hall is different and their feelings about it are different, also. Morgan and Kara said they felt happy the first time dancing in the mess hall. Aerin’s first time dancing in the mess Hall was very special.

“In 2004 my sister forced me to dance and I loved it,” Aerin said.

Dancing makes mealtime specialby Caylin Brod 4th Grade


1. Encourage others – Just by say-ing “great job!” or “you can do it!” motivates friends to also be happy. Making others happy can make you happy!

2. Try something new – If you feel like there is an activity you haven’t tried yet at camp, try it! It can maybe become a new favorite of yours.

3. Be your best self – Whether during a tournament, or even in the mess hall, always try to be the best version of yourself you can be. This way, you can easily become a role model, and feel good about how you act!

4. Look at the bright side – When-ever you are in a gloomy state, or just feeling down, think of some-thing like an accomplishment, or something to look forward to in the near future!

5. Listen to music – Listening to music can motivate you whether you are falling asleep, or even

going for a run! It will put a little pep in your step!

6. Dance in the Mess Hall – It’s pretty easy. All you have to do is grab someone you are close with and sing along until your voice is gone. Trust us, it will do a great deal toward making you feel happy!

7. Resolve your issues – If you are in an argument with someone, try to resolve your issues. It stinks to be in a fight with one of your best friends, and resolving it quickly is best. Remember, cherish all the great moments!

8. Accepting who you are – Having great self-esteem can create a happy, fun-filled environment apart from a gloomy one. Being happy, can make others happy, too! You can learn more about who you are through activities here at camp, and embracing them!

9. Stay active – Staying active can

make you more energized, which can bring up your mood, and make you feel … happy!

10. Curing Homesickness – Some-times, if you are not happy at camp, it might be because you are homesick. Curing homesick-ness is pretty easy! First, know that you are home for more than three-fourths of the year! Next, write a letter home! It can remind you of your friends and family at home! Finally, remember this; for less than a quarter of the year, you are at camp. You should live in every waking moment at camp because it is very limited time. Sometimes, it is better to get over your homesickness the best that you can, because camp is special and you should try to enjoy every moment that you experience.

10 Pieces of Advice to Stay Happy at Camp! by Samantha Port 7th Grade

Homesick? You can be happy, tooby Ellie Epstein 5th Grade

Being a first-year camper at Dan-bee, I was concerned about being

homesick. Once I got off the bus I was feeling very confused, upset and a little excited at the same time. I was upset because I missed my parents and my home, but I was happy to be here and learn new things.

The first night actually was pretty easy because I found some good friends in the bunk and that night we had just had “Choco Tacos.” So that is an example of what I was happy about. Something that was a little confusing was my first ever Leagues. It was confusing because

I didn’t know some of the games and I was new to my team. As you all know the first day or two is hard. However, you get into a groove of how living with other girls is and activities, meals, etc.

Even though sometimes you might be homesick, you also are happy at the same time. Two years ago, I came to Danbee for Discovery week. Also, I was not used to sleeping away from home for more than one night, so I was homesick a lot. In the activities, I just wanted to be home. When Friday finally came I got on the bus to go home and when the bus got to the parking lot where my parents

picked me up, I was happy to see them. When we got in the car I started to cry. My mom asked me if I was crying because I missed them, or was I crying because I liked camp?

Then I thought about it and maybe I actually was crying because I liked camp. This year I really love camp and I really have made a lot of great friends. Going to camp is really fun once you get here. Also, going to camp will help you grow. So, you can be homesick and you can happy at the same time without even knowing.


Jay is the big picture, out front di-rector. Mark runs camp operations

and is the behind-the-scenes director. Who has the most important job?

Both Jay and Mark agree that it is important to stick to your strengths. Jay says it is better to excel at something you are good at than not do your best at something you are not good at. Mark is detail oriented. He is good at organiza-tion, planning and logistics. Jay is a cul-ture creator. He recruits campers, trains staff, plays music in the mess hall and works hard at creating a culture where Danbee is strong.

Mark says Jay came up with Danbee strong. He thinks it is based on Boston Strong. Jay’s idea is to create a camp where girls can become the best they can be. His hope is that Danbee creates strong girls who can solve problems and make the community better.

“It is part of our mission forever now,” Jay said about Danbee strong going forward.

When they are not at camp they still talk on the phone every day and meet a few times during the year to talk about the upcoming camp season. They both work very hard at creating a fun, different and, most of all, strong camp.

Mark and Jay have different ideas of a satisfying camp experience. For Jay, a satisfying experience is watching kids participating in new things and hearing about acts of kindness they do every day. For Mark it is when everything is orga-nized and running smoothly.

On the other side, an unsatisfying experience for Jay is when he is not able to help a child overcome something like homesickness. For Mark, it is “every-thing.” When he doesn’t have enough time to get everything done that needs to get done.

Jay usually talks at the campfires and in the mess hall. But Mark talks when we have Leagues on Mondays. We asked Mark and Jay about stage fright. Jay says when he was first here he was

nervous, but he learned to speak his feelings.

“I learned to speak from my heart,” Jay said.

Meanwhile, Mark says that everyone gets stage fright, but he doesn’t get it at camp because he knows everyone here.

Mark says he and Jay complement each other and they both are equally important. He also said they are competi-tive, but Jay is more so.

“You surprised?” Mark said with a laugh.

When asked whether they would ever trade jobs, Jay said, “No, because we have such different roles that we are able to communicate and respect each other.”

Mark and Jay try to work together on

the new things every year like our new pontoon boat they just got this year. They also think about the right amount of mon-ey to spend for the coming year.

They both have backgrounds in edu-cation. Mark was a teacher and he taught junior high science. He earned a master’s degree in School Administration. Jay worked at a college in charge of residen-tial life and worked at a camp in the sum-mer time. He received a master’s degree in Guidance and Psychological Services and a certificate of advanced graduate study in the same area of study.

Even though one might be more com-petitive than the other, they are the ones who make Camp Danbee the best camp out there!

Mark and Jay follow their strengthsby Sally Brouhard and Lulu Rosenthal 7th Grade


Many jobs exist at Danbee. Many jobs are important to keep

Danbee running smoothly. Yet, not many people really think about the important ones.

Picture that you are walking and you see Kim Zastempowski walk past. You know her and you will run up and say, hi! Then you keep walking. Courtney Jordan walks past and you wave at her then keep walking. Both people are important, but what is the difference?

Well, how often do you see Kim walk by? Very often. Courtney? Rarely. Do they both have important jobs/roles? Definitely. We interviewed some people you see every day and others who you rarely see. Many people we interviewed had very interesting stories.

They are among the people who make sure that Danbee runs smoothly and correctly every day.

One such person is, Karen Rozencwaig, who is assistant director and works in the office. Many of you know her and might see Karen walking around at some camp events, such as Leagues or Gold Rush. You might not see Karen a lot because she helps Danbee run very smoothly in the office. For in-stance, the first night of camp she emails parents to tell them the buses have ar-rived. For first-time campers she will call the parents and tell them you arrived safe and sound. If you are homesick, Karen will tell parents it is normal and there are people here to help with that. Also, say you are supposed to be wearing glasses and your parents see in pictures that you aren’t and call the camp. Karen will an-swer the call and then make it her job to remind you, as your mom would, to wear your glasses.

Megan Whitby is a Honey Bumble counselor and being a counselor to Dan-bee’s youngest campers is not an easy task to do. She and her two companions, take care of seven, 7- and 8-year- olds. Aside from doing that she also works at the lake. It is a very different job than

Karen’s, but just as important. Our par-ents take care of a few kids, but nine of the same age – I’d say she has her hands full.

Shannon Mahoney, head of ropes and Yellow Jacket group leader, leads two dif-ferent lives at camp. She is group leader, but she doesn’t directly take care of kids as counselors do. As group leader she makes sure counselors have what they need, plans evening activities and works with Anna Miller, Campus director. As head of ropes, she works with girls of all different ages teaching them to correctly and safely do the activities (giant swing, zip line, etc.)

Courtney is another one of the im-portant people in the office. Her job is to recruit the counselors. During the off season she travels a lot to find people who suit the job. She also is always busy organizing Camp Sea Stars North. She also organizes trips and transportation during camp season. Courtney says that many people would love to have her job.

Rick Harrington, the maintenance manager, is well known, but not many people actually think about how essen-tial his job is. Before camp Rick goes around and checks every bunk to make sure all showers, sinks and toilets work. This is a big job because everything has to be set up before campers arrive. Hot water heaters have to be set up, the docks have to be put into the lake, the boats have to come out of storage and put in the lake, along with the Wet Willie Slide and the Aqua Glide. During camp Rick’s staff take care mowing the lawn and landscaping. Rick and his staff also will fix things if they stop working. When camp is over all the stuff has to come out of the water go into storage and all the pipes have to be drained for the winter. Without Rick making sure things work we wouldn’t be able to come to Danbee.

All of those people are important but there are still many other important peo-ple at Danbee, for all you know you may be looking at one right now.

Important jobs keep Danbee goingby Alex Kabakov and Ellie Epstein 5th Grade


The seventh and graders can barley contain their excitement as they

wrap themselves in their harnesses. They are taking their annual trip to Ramble Wild, an exciting ropes and obstacle course.

While the Wel-B-Yon are in Montreal and the ninth graders are at Martha’s Vineyard, the seventh and eighth graders go on an amazing trip to Ramble Wild, where they can learn to be safe while also having a ton of fun.

Because I’m a seventh grader I went on this exciting trip. One of my biggest worries was the height of the courses, but this didn’t stop me from doing it. Surprisingly, when I was up on the platforms I felt extremely comfortable, and perhaps this was because of how safe I knew I was. At Ramble Wild there is a lot of safety built into the courses. Everyone wears a harness, which is connected to something else at all times while on the course. Another thing is that if one clip is open the other one must be closed or it won’t work. But before you can go on any of the courses, you have to go on a small test course to make sure

you know how to clip yourself in and connect yourself to the courses. This is another thing they do to make sure that you know how to be safe.

All of these things made me feel safe and secure while I was on the course

At Ramble Wild there are multiple courses that you can choose to go on. There are different levels of difficulty that go along with the different courses. There are four colors, and two courses per color. The colors are yellow, green, blue and black. Yellow is the easiest and black is the hardest, although we weren’t allowed to go on black, since you have to be over sixteen to go on it, some of the counselors and group leaders went on the double black, the harder black out of the two, which is the hardest course at Ramble Wild. Most campers started with yellow or green, but afterward, since we had enough time to do two courses, went to the next color. I went on yellow courses both times, since they had the shortest waits.

At the end of the day everyone had so much fun on the courses, and everyone knew how to be safe on the courses.

I had an amazing time and overall I think that the trip was a huge success. To top it all off, we ended the trip with the tra-ditional Danbee trip lunch of turkey and cheese sandwiches.

Ramble Wild means excitementby Flora Zik 7th Grade

Gold rush is a big evening activity with the whole camp. We dress up

like cowboys from the old west. The Campus area was where we looked

for precious stones like rubies, silver and gold. The bunk that collects the most stones and money at the end wins. This year bunk 20 and 39 (mine) won.

There were people who were wanted by the sheriff and posters are put up around Campus with their faces on them. The wanted people have to find a ninth grade angel to protect them. If they don’t they then can be captured and jailed. The re-ward for jailing somebody was fifty dollars in Danbee money. You can free yourself from jail by doing a skill. This year I was

wanted and I went to jail. I freed myself by staying a long time in a handstand or walk-ing in a handstand.

You could also win money by playing games, or you could pay 20 dollars in Danbee money to get a canoe ride to the teepee in Acres and get popcorn before coming back. You also get candy from the Wel-B-Yon who run the Candy Bar.

Cat Spinney, a Queen Bee in Bunk 38, thinks that Gold Rush is really fun. She likes it because it has a lot of teamwork. Her favorite part is finding rocks and clues because it is kind of like a mystery.

Alexis Ellman, a seventh grader in Bunk 3B, also thinks it was really fun. She likes it because she got to spend time with some

friends and get candy. Her favorite part of Gold Rush was the candy saloon and collecting gold because we can’t get candy at other times.

Gold Rush is Adam Zastempowski’s favorite evening activity. He likes it because he gets to dress up and be with the whole camp and you can get good prices. Adam has been in Gold Rush for 14 years, but hasn’t always played the same role as a gold miner. For many years he was on the big truck throwing the colored rocks. Since being the gold miner, he has worn the same costume.

Gold Rushby Heloise Marie 6th Grade


“Snow cones, popcorn, cotton candy, fruit pops,” yelled the

ninth graders anxiously waiting to pro-vide the camp with the delicious carnival foods that we have here at Danbee.

Every year at Danbee it is a tradition to have a carnival where the 9th graders work at the food stands and the Wel-B-Yon, the oldest age group, get wet in the dunk tank. Campus girls, the youngest part of camp, get dressed up and come up with a theme idea for their bunk paint-ed on large signs. Each bunk then pa-rades in front of everyone before carnival starts. The rest of camp comes up with a carnival booth idea where the kids rotate between working at the booth and going on the rides and having fun.

Some of the rides include a giant slide, swings, humongous Velcro darts, a bouncy house called dance party, a large blowup obstacle course you had to navi-gate from one end to the other by leaping from one position to the other without falling and so much more. There also are

Danbeegrams. You write out a message to somebody and the WBY read it over the loud speakers. It’s a Danbee tradition.

The parade was especially good this year, which you could tell by the loud cheering. The whole camp sits on the ground in two lines leaving an aisle open in the middle for the different parading bunks to walk through and show off their magnificent costumes. Some of the cos-tumes this year included female athletes, “Legally Blonde” characters, princesses and so many more outstanding cos-tumes.

The booths are a necessity to mak-ing carnival the success it was this year and all the years before it. The snow cone booth always is a favorite. As is the frozen flavored ice pop stand. Both of those were great because we had great sunny weather for carnival. One booth that I found very interesting was the “kissing booth.” Don’t be weirded out by the name, because it actually is really creative. You get a stamp of a kiss on

your hand or cheek and you also receive Hershey Kisses. Very sweet!

After the fantastic carnival, every age group cools down by having a lake or pool party. Later that night the campers concluded their day with a talent show to add on to the fantastic carnival day that we had here at Danbee

Carnival at Danbee a traditionby Lindsay Cohen 7th Grade

Ramble Wild means excitementby Flora Zik 7th Grade

Directions: Keep track of which letters you answer, and then find which head counselor you are most like on the next page! 1. Out of these four words which one

describes you best?a. Introspective (self-analyzing)b. Intriguing (interesting)c. Vivacious

(animated and spirited)d. Fun

2. Which of these options do you enjoy most?

a. Hikingb. Eatingc. Paintingd. Traveling

3. Out of these four which genre of music is your favorite

a. Heavy metalb. Popc. 90’s R and Bd. Punk

4. Which of these foods do you like the most?

a. Pizzab. All food except onionsc. Sushid. Seafood

5. What is your favorite part of camp?a. The time between classesb. Dancing in the mess hall c. Banquetd. Dance

6. Out of these people who is your biggest inspiration?

a. Your Grandfatherb. Your momc. Meredith Grey

(of Grey’s Anatomy)d. Your Dad

Which counselor are you most like?by Alexis Ellman 7th Grade


Hypnotist Ronny Romm’s show “hilarious”by Cassidy Gutman 5th Grade

Saturday, July 8th was a very ex-citing evening at Camp Danbee.

Ronny Romm the hypnotist came! This is Ronny Romm’s 48th year performing at Danbee! Wow!

Campers squished into the theater eager to see who would be hypnotized. Ronny had about eight Wel-B-Yon (the oldest girls at camp) up on stage, along with about eight counselors. The first thing that Ronny asked these girls was to put their hands together and pretend that they were molded into one. It worked on a lot of these girls and the expressions on their faces were humorous! Somehow Ronny got everyone on stage to do crazy things like being a ballerina, thinking that it was 136 degrees outside, thinking that it was minus two degrees outside, think-ing that they had a unicorn as a pet, see-ing good looking boys and much more!

It was hilarious and everyone in camp thought so, too. Every time Ronny would have someone do something, all of camp laughed! Ronny is very talented and no one has any idea how he does it! Magic! Every year campers have a blast watch-ing their counselors and friends up on

stage! The interesting thing is the people

who get hypnotized have no memory of what they had just done! After one of the counselors were awakened and off the stage, I asked her what she felt like. Her response was, “I was not up there.” That was weird! After the show was over, almost everyone that was hypnotized felt dizzy or sick. One counselor even threw up!

After talking to Madi Booth (who is a counselor for the yellow jackets), we have realized that it does not work on every-one!

“When we were sticking our hands together, my finger moved and I was out of it.” Madi said. “After the show ended,

I asked Ronny why it did not work on me. He told me that there are different methods to hypnotism, he told me that the one he tried on me was too easy for me.” Wow! Thanks Madi!

Hypnotizing is very complicated and only talented people can do it properly.

Thanks, Ronny, for another amazing performance! See you next year!

So, you are most like…..by Alexis Ellman 7th Grade

Mostly A’s…You’re most like Neal. You are introspective and analyze yourself. You look up to someone wise, such

as a grandparent, and enjoy the time between classes. You also enjoy hiking, pizza, and heavy metal music.

Mostly B’s…You’re most like

Hannah. You are a fun and intriguing person. You love to eat and maybe even

cook all food except onions, obviously. You love dancing to pop music in the mess hall, and if you are anything like Hannah you also love snack time. You look up to your mom or a mother like figure who is an inspiration to you.

Mostly C’s…You’re most like

Charley. You are animated and spirited. You also are creative and enjoy things

like Banquet and painting. You look up to a famous and inspiring person, even if they’re fictional, such as Meredith Grey.

You also like 90’s R and B and sushi.

Mostly D’s… You’re most like

Mikey. You are a fun per-son who loves to dance. You also enjoy punk mu-

sic, seafood and traveling the world! You also look up to an inspiring figure, such as your dad.


Skills are an important part of tennis.

Neal Gerhart, Acres tennis director, enjoys teaching kids all of the skills that pertain to tennis. Some of the skills that Neal likes teaching his students are fore hands, back hands, and serves. He has been teaching tennis at Danbee for twenty-seven years and has taught these skills to a lot of campers. Taking lessons with Neal will help you improve your game.

The tennis program is interesting and fun. I have been playing tennis six years and I love to play. All the fun games we play help you with the tennis technique. Such as Jail and Queen of the Court.

When you are in the tennis program at Danbee, you can go to tennis tourna-ments where you will play against other camps, such as Taconic, Lenox and Pontiac. Before you get to play in tourna-ments you will have to learn serves and

how to keep score. Also, you can do the Tennis Academy. The tennis academy is like a regular class, but you play with oth-er age groups besides your own. If you do the Tennis Academy you will mostly take the classes before breakfast or at Fun and Fitness. The Tennis Academy is not the whole summer it is only ten or eleven classes. During the Tennis Acade-my either Adam or Neal will teach you.

When it comes to the tennis program at Danbee, it is the place to be to im-prove your skills.

Tennis program improves your skillsby Stella Newman 4th Grade

Cabin life a time to be creativeby Jolie Litvak 4th Grade

Inside the cabins anything can happen, so let’s see what does! On

normal days we would talk, play cards, write letters, and so on. But on some days talking, playing cards, and writing letters just isn’t enough. At Danbee we need to get creative!

In the bunks we get bored easily, so we make dances outside and make up games on boring days, but some bunks on campus can have only six to 11 people! So, we might not have enough people, or maybe we might have too many! So we need to get super creative at those points.

On super lazy rest hours we don’t want to get active, so we just talk. The question is what do we talk about? We usually talk about activities here, sports, leagues, stuffed animals, upcoming

events and sometimes talent shows. What are some of our favorite things

to do in the bunk? Honey Bumble Dolan Gay said, “I lie

down and rest on hot days in the bunk.” “I love to read in the bunk,” Queen

Bee Veronique Mintz said.Meanwhile, Queen Bee Ashley Hober-

man said, “My favorite thing to do in the bunk is play Spa.”

Finally, Wel-B-Yon Talia Rozencwaig said, “I like to chill and talk with friends at the Wel-B-Yon house.”

It turns out at Danbee we don’t just rest at rest hour, shower at shower hour, or read and write letters at flashlight time. At Danbee we go way farther than that!


It is a tradition every year to have an Acres Play for the older campers and

a Campus Play for the younger campers. The Acres play this year was “Thirteen” and was a huge success.

The show premiered on the 25th of July and everyone was so anxious to see the older girls in action. The play is about a 13-year-old named Evan Gold-man, played by Dylan Goodman, who lives in New York City. Evan’s parents get divorced, so he moves to Indiana with his mother and has to have is Bar Mitzvah in a place where he knows nobody. He becomes good friends with his neighbor, Patrice, played by Maddy Efron. Evan wants to invite the coolest kids to his party, but soon finds out that Patrice is on the wrong side of the main cool kid, Brett, played by Rachel Hodes. If Brett doesn’t like you then, neither does any of his followers. The two main followers of Brett are Eddie, played by Ariella Russin, and Malcom, played by me.

One of the characters that wowed the crowd was that of Archie, a 13 year old boy with a degenerative neuromuscular disorder, played by Michele Cohen.

“I have been waiting to play the role of Archie for years,” Michele said.

She definitely pulled it off; she was one of the main causes of laughter during the play.

There is a ton of drama throughout the play. Evan rips up the invitation that he gave to Patrice for his Bar Mitzvah and choses the cool kids over Patrice. Brett asked out Kendra the head of the cheer-leading squad, played by Samantha Port, and Lucy, played by Maddy Beldner, gets jealous and creates a whole scheme to break them up.

In the end Lucy’s scheme works and Lucy and Brett end up dating. Evan, who now is out of favor with all of the cool kids, ends up dating Patrice and is good friends with Archie. Evan, Patrice and Archie learn what true friendship is all about.

When the actors took their bows at

the end of the play they were greeted with loud applause and cheers. Rebecca Stavis and her team oversaw another successful performance in the Danbee Theater.

Acres Play was a huge successby Lindsay Cohen 7th Grade


The campus play this year was a fantastic story, originally written by

Roald Dahl, called “The Witches.” Honey Bumbles to Queen Bees displayed their acting talents.

“The Witches” is a book and a movie. It is about a boy who moved in with his Grandma after his parents died in a car accident. His Grandma tells him a story about the witches of England. When they take a vacation to Hotel Magnificent the young boy finds himself in the middle of the meeting for the witches of England, which the grand high witch attended. The witch turned the boy into a mouse because she hates children. The witches journey is to destroy all the children in the world. The boy must find a way to out-smart the grand high witch from carrying out her plan of turning all the children in England into mice.

An interesting part of the play was that the actors for each character changed multiple times during the play. For example, three girls played boy, the

main character. These three girls were Jordan Yanowitz, Charlie Reiss and Jessica Rodriguez. The grandma in the story was played by Alex Kobakav and Ashley Hoberman. Lila Goldin had an astonishing performance as the grand high witch. As a yellow jacket, she had by far the most lines and pulled it off with a hilarious accent. There were also about six witches who were all attending the meeting.

In only a week and a half, the actors in campus learned an extraordinary amount of lines in such a small time pe-riod. Though the play was on the shorter side, it was excellent and people were impressed with how many lines they learned in such a short time.

In the play, the story turned out fine because the boy poured the grand high witches own potion, that he stole, into her and all the witches soup. They were turned into mice immediately and the boy and his grandma lived together happily, though the boy was still a mouse.

The Campus Play a big hitby Sally Brouhard

Danbee people all have storiesby Lila Goldin 4th Grade

People who come to Danbee all have different life experiences and stories. The Beeline talked to some of those people and here are their stories.Mike Snodgrass: Mikey, as he is known to campers, is the director of the lake front and has an interesting life. For a start, he lives in Vancouver, British Co-lumbia in Canada. On campus, he lives in one of the bunks down by the lake. He has been here 22 years and he is 44 years old. That’s half of his life! While at the lake Mikey enjoys waterskiing and paddle boarding. One of his best mem-ories at the lake was when there was a Leagues Break there. His favorite thing that he ever did at Danbee was when he

rode in the fire engine for a Fake Leagues break. The best group name ever was BOOM!! His favorite activities besides the lake are tennis and soccer. His favorite color is red. In spare time, he likes to travel. He has no pets. He did not go to a sleepaway camp as a kid.Laine Phillips: Laine Phillips, who is the definition of Danbee spirit, has a great life surrounded in Camp Danbee. She started as a Honey Bumble and was here for nine years. She was a Wel-B-Yon in 2015. Her banquet theme was Aladdin. While at Danbee she has been given two awards. The Lynn Fluss Award and the Danbee Spirit Girl Award. This year Laine is an LIT, which stands for Leader In Training.

Her birthday is in December. She has a brother named Harrison and a sister named Paige. She has one dog and her favorite activity is theater.Giselle (Gigi) Goh: Gigi lives in Green-wich, NY and her birthday is in June. She is a first-time camper. Gigi has a big interest in art and she loves nature. She wanted to draw some of the inspiring views she saw when she visited the mu-seum. She started to draw in preschool and kept drawing. In art Gigi feels like you can express yourself and your emo-tions. She feels free when she is drawing. For art, in her opinion, has no limits.


It was Hornet summer when I first decided that I would perform in the

talent show; little did I know I’d be doing it for the next three years.

I had never been so afraid to do something because, up until that point, I had only performed for my family. Doing the talent show, especially as a 9-year-old, was a big step for me. I had all of these negative thoughts going through my head, “What if I mess up?” “Will peo-ple be supportive of me?” “Will anyone even care?” I decided to do it anyway.

Eventually, the day of the talent show came and I was in the Mess Hall danc-ing when I heard the announcement, “all people in the talent show please head down to the theater.” I took a deep breath and told myself that everything would be fine.

The theater seemed so empty without everyone in it. We were told to sit in the order that we would perform. I was pretty close to the end, which made me feel a bit better. Gradually, the entire camp arrived at the theater and everyone was anxiously waiting for the talent show to begin. When everyone was settled in, the lights slowly began to turn off and the talent show began with the first act on stage. I don’t remember who was first, but I remember it making me feel very in-secure because I have a habit of compar-ing myself to other people and I thought the first act was amazing.

After everyone in front of me had per-

formed, it was my turn. I was backstage when I heard, “Sasha Sinel playing pia-no!” That’s when my stomach dropped. I slowly walked out onto the stage and looked at the people in the audience. I was close to crying, but I played. When I finally finished and I stood up to take a bow, I was shocked to find that everyone was clapping for me. I had never felt so accomplished. I heard so many people cheering, telling me that I’m so good at piano and how adorable I was on stage. It was such a good feeling and my bunk definitely was very supportive, as well.

I’ve been playing piano since I was five, but I quit taking lessons when I was in fifth grade. Lessons seemed so boring to me because I couldn’t choose the song I wanted to play. It was all classi-cal music. Plus, I was told that I had to read sheet music to play the song. No matter how many times I practiced, I just couldn’t learn how. For me, it was like learning a new language.

So, I took matters into my own hands and started learning by ear (and through YouTube). I would pick a song, listen to it a few times on YouTube and then press the keys until I thought the chord sound-ed right, and then I would move on to the next chord. Needless to say, it takes

a while for me to learn a whole song by ear. The recent song I played in the talent show called “Sleepwalking,” took me about a month and a half to learn, but it definitely was worth it. I’ve realized every single time I stepped on stage I would get the same nervous feeling that would make my stomach drop. Then every single time I left the stage I had the same thought in my head, “I had nothing to worry about.”

Although Rebecca Stavis, Danbee’s theater director, wasn’t here my first year, she was there for the rest of them. When I went back stage and told her I messed up a bit, she would always tell me, “No one noticed, you did great.” She also told me she watched me in the talent show every year, from when I was a Queen Bee to now and saw that each year, I would get a bit more advanced at piano and perform more difficult songs.

Overall, performing in the talent show definitely is something that made me step out of my comfort zone. Howev-er, each year I’m getting less and less nervous and it’s getting easier to step out and play. I know that everyone will be so supportive afterward and it really helps to know that.

Talent Show - A Personal Perspectiveby Sasha Sinel 8th Grade


Sunday July 16TH was a happy and sad day for campers at Danbee.

It was parent visiting, a day when camp-ers get to spend time with their parents and other family members they haven’t seen since coming to camp. That always is a happy occasion. Yet, there are the inevitable goodbyes when it is all over and that can be sad. Still, everyone looks forward to parent visiting and fun time

The cars carrying parents eager to see their daughters started lining up before 7:30 a.m. along the shoulder of West Main Road that runs past the entrance to Camp Danbee.

Campers jumped out of bed early for Super Cleanup! They were anxious for their families to arrive. Campers on Campus and Acres quickly ate their breakfast on their bunk porches. When they finished eating, they started looking for familiar faces. Once a family member is spotted three things happen: a fast sprint, a big hug, cry happy tears. It was such a joy watching campers reunite with their families.

“I was happy and excited to see my family,” said Summya Adigun, a seventh grader from Kansas.

Campers were running back to their bunks excited to show their families where they have been living for the past four weeks. Then campers rushed to their first period activity to show their families their skills. Options such as, swim, tennis, zip lining, lake, cooking and so much more were available for families to see.

Eventually it was time for lunch! Par-ents and campers lined up at the lunch tents to get delicious barbeque followed by fabulous deserts. Then it was time to do one of Danbee’s best and most fun traditions… DANCING after each meal! Dancing at meals at Camp Danbee is so much fun that we had to share it with our families. Of course, one of Danbee’s favorite songs to dance to, “I would walk 500 miles,” was played.

At the end of this, we all impatiently

waited for Dana to announce leagues scores. Two counselors stood on a plat-form in front of Mark who was holding a Super Soaker squirt gun filled with colored water. As everyone gathered around, Mark pulled the trigger and red colored water shot out splattering across the front of the counselor’s white shirts and red confetti from hand held wands exploded into the air. This told everyone that the Americans had the lead in the Leagues competition. The Americans (red and blue) were up by 105 points.

Then everyone headed off for some fun and to cool off in the pools and at the lake. The Aqua Glide, Wet Willy Slide, trampoline and boat rides around the lake were a big hit.

Of course, the time to say goodbye came and while it was sad, everyone knew it was back to fun times at camp. For the campers on Campus it now was time for the traditional shaving cream fight when everyone ends up covered in shaving cream. That marked the end to another successful parent visiting day.

Parent Visiting a special dayby Cassidy Gutman and Jordan Yanowitz 5th Grade

Talent Show - A Personal Perspectiveby Sasha Sinel 8th Grade


Casino night is an annual special event here at camp Danbee. It

starts with “Danbee Dollars” given to all campers to “gamble” with. Although the Wel-B-Yon are never here for this event because of their trip to California, the rest of camp enjoys it.

Campers walk into the mess hall, which has been fully transformed into The Casino. During the evening, we have the opportunity to play blackjack, rou-lette, craps, buy raffle tickets, and many more casino games.

We enjoy “fribbles” also known as milkshakes, always a highlight of the eve-ning. Not only are there normal fribbles, there is the super fribble. These are larger fribbles with Oreos, graham crackers, chocolate syrup, marshmallows, whipped cream, sprinkles and more. Super fribbles are auctioned off to the highest bidder and have sold for as much as 800 Dan-bee dollars. In addition to the fribbles, counselors bring other snacks around. These include potato chips, Doritos and pretzels.

While most kids are playing games and betting, others are in the “VIP Lounge.” Anyone who is willing to pay the asking price for a spot in the lounge can go in. There are special snacks in there along with candy and soda. Kim and Adam take care of the VIP lounge and can change the price of admission at any time. The VIP lounge is a staple piece of Danbee’s casino night.

An event that is rather new is the ninth grade games. These games started in 2015, were discontinued last year, and were brought back this year by Rebecca Toporoff, the ninth grade group leader. The entire ninth grade played a Danbee version of Deal or No Deal. Prizes includ-ed breakfast in bed, Dunkin’ Donuts, a bunk pontoon ride with a surprise and watching a movie while floating in the pool. Everyone who played really enjoyed it.

Casino night this year featured a barbecue outside to allow more time to

transform the mess hall into a casino. Usually there is a short amount of time between the end of dinner and the start of evening activity to set up. This helped make casino night better than it was in previous years.

Rebecca has been in charge of planning special events this year. She planned this night and many others. Because her parents (Mark and Amy) work at Danbee, Rebecca spent years as a camper and then she became a coun-selor. This has given her the experience necessary to plan these events because she knows what people like and what they don’t. The night was a big success and everyone enjoyed it.

Casino Night: Dollars for Fribblesby Lexi Colodne and Eliza Lakritz 9th Grade


Halloween definitely

is one of the most favorite holidays of the year. But what is better than Hal-loween? Halloween at Danbee!

One of the best parts of Halloween here is the Haunted House. Every year,

there is a haunted house better and scar-ier than the one before. But most people aren’t aware of how much work goes into creating the haunted house.

Lake front director Mike Snodgrass (campers call him Mikey), has been at Danbee for 22 years and he has been in-volved with haunted house each of those years. So, we asked him about what is involved in getting haunted house set up.

Planning, Mikey said, starts a week ahead of time. The actual set up inside the haunted house takes two nights. During planning they decide what the scary parts will be and who will be the

different characters. This year Mikey was a scary clown guarding the entrance. Jack and Greg were skeletons, Laine was a scary doll and Charlie was Harley Quinn, the comic book supervillain.

The makeup on the characters looks so real and really shows up in the dark. This year Charlie, Laine and Annabel did the makeup on the characters. They start to get ready during shower hour and dinner the night of Halloween.

There are rules that the characters and campers have to follow. Nobody is allowed to touch any of the campers as they go through the haunted house and campers are not allowed to touch any of the characters (not that they would want to).

The haunted house has always been part of the Halloween tradition at camp during the 27 years Jay and Mark have been at Danbee. Mikey has seen a lot of haunted houses and his favorites were in the years 2011, 2012 and this year.

While we did not to in the haunted house, a lot of the people we talked to said they thought it was pretty scary, too.

Haunted House better each yearby Rebecca Kaplan and Celia Rayman 5th Grade

Casino Night: Dollars for Fribblesby Lexi Colodne and Eliza Lakritz 9th Grade

Halloweenby Sasha Pechter and Alex Yanowitz 7th Grade

Halloween stopped at Camp Danbee on July 22nd, 2017. The

evening started with a barbeque but just before everyone began eating the Wel-B-Yon came out in their costumes. The theme they decided on was wild animals and the costumes ranged from elephants to peacocks.

Once dinner was over the campers lined up to form a runway that the coun-selors used for their costume contest. This year’s theme was celebrities After looking through all of the costumes the campers decided on the Wel-B-Yon counselor’s costume, The Zoo Keepers.

After the costume contest was over all of acres and the Wel-B-Yon went down to the field house to watch the 9th graders perform their skits, however, usually it’s at the tennis courts, but this year they had to change the location because of rain. While skits were going on, campus kids were going from bunk-to-bunk doing different challenges for candy, running through the haunted house before the lights went off, and doing many other fun and spooky activities.

Halfway through skits most of Acres left and did the same activities that Cam-pus did

earlier in the evening. By this time, people are going through the haunted house with the lights off and all of camp is doing the activities that Halloween has to offer. There are also many more activi-ties such as the ghostly golf cart ride and the hayride, or going into cooking and making witch hats.

At the end of the evening every-one heads back to their bunk, taking off their costumes and face paint, and their bags probably stuffed with candy and talking about how exciting Halloween was this year.


The seventh graders at Danbee were very fortunate to go to Cape

Cod for three days and two nights. Upon arrival, the seventh graders went

to Dennis Beach for about three hours. The beach was very nice, but there was a lot of seaweed. We left the beach around 3:00, and went to our hotel, the Clarion All Seasons. We got ready for our night and shortly after that we went to down-town Hyannis for dinner. We didn’t have much time for shopping, but somehow, we ended up at CVS. For dinner, many of us ate at a nice place called Colombo’s, others went to Thai and Italian restau-rants. After we ate we went to the movies at a mall and we saw Despicable Me 3. We departed from the theater and arrived at our hotel at about 10:00.

The second day in the Cape, we went to breakfast at the Hearth and Kettle. Then we headed to Provincetown for dune tours and shopping. We split in two groups, and half of us went on dune tours and half of us went shopping. The dune tours were an hour long and

showed the dune shacks and the inter-esting plants that are able to grow on the dunes. When we went shopping we went to a bunch of unique stores, such as the toy store, Shirts ‘n Stuff, the Shell Store, Cuffy’s, Black Dog, and more. For lunch, most groups went to JD’s for sushi and seafood. After we left Provincetown, we went to Pirate’s Cove mini golf. It was a very cool place with a bunch of scary pirates. After mini golfing, we went back to our hotel for pizza and swimming, the pizza was very good and the water was warm. After we ate dinner we got ready and went next door to the Cape Cod Creamery. Their ice-cream is home-made and was very, very good. Then we walked back to the hotel and hung out.

On our final day, we headed to the Hearth and Kettle for breakfast again. We departed to a different beach called Sea Gull Beach. This beach had almost no seaweed and the water was very clear. After the beach, we went back to downtown Hyannis for more shopping and dinner. It was our group leader’s last

day with us, so most of us met back at Colombo’s to eat with her. When we were back on the bus, we all signed a shirt for her as a gift because she was leaving. While we were on the bus ride home we watched a very dramatic movie called Twilight.

With plenty of sun, delightful food and lots to do, Cape Cod was a fun trip.

Cape Cod: a trip of sun and good foodby Lulu Rosenthal and Marissa Miller 7th Grade

Charley Drov-

er’s journey to Danbee started three years ago when she went to a job fair with a friend who was looking for summer em-

ployment. But Charley ended up talking to Jay and Mark and got signed up to work at Danbee.

Charley’s first job experience at Dan-bee was as an art teacher, which also is her first time teaching art. Charley, age 23, who is from Glasgow, Scotland,

has been doing art since the age of 12. When Charley was 12 years old she had a choice at school of either doing dra-ma, music, or art design. She chose art design. She loved the design part of it. She made a design of Ursula from The little mermaid, and that’s when she fell in love with art.

She gets all her ideas from Pinterest and her art history classes, which she is studying in college. Charley said she likes art because she finds it fun and the rea-son she is so good at what she does is for three reasons. First, she does a lot of it. Second, she thinks about it a lot. Third is, well, practice.

Charley’s favorite type of art is fluid

art. She explains that fluid art is when you make something that looks like it is moving.

She got into art because of her “cool and inspiring high school art teacher.” Charley said that the reason she found her teacher so inspiring was because she drew so smoothly, acted very positive and if you said that your drawing was not good, she would help make it better in five seconds.

When Charley thinks about art, she sees it as something very special.

“Art is a powerful thing,” she said. “Everybody is good at art, or very cre-ative, even if they think they aren’t.”

Charley and Danbee: a chance meetingby Charlie Reiss 5th Grade

Cape Cod: a trip of sun and good foodby Lulu Rosenthal and Marissa Miller 7th Grade


VAGS definitely is something that all Acres, Wel-B-Yon and Queen

Bee campers look forward to. VAGS, short for vagabonds, is when the older age groups of camp go on trips outside of camp during the sixth week of camp. Queen Bees go to Mystic Seaport, seventh grade goes to Cape Cod, eighth goes to Boston, ninth goes to Maine and finally, the Wel-B-Yon go to California. I’m currently in eighth grade, so I went to Boston.

The trip to Boston wasn’t very long, but before we arrived, we went to Hamp-ton Beach. The second the bus parked, everyone was racing to get onto the beach. We stayed there for a while, went into the water, did some shopping, and then the time came to get back onto the bus to go to Boston.

Usually, since Mah-Kee-Nac, Dan-

bee’s brother camp, goes to Boston with us, we would go with them on “Codzilla,” a wet and wild ride in Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, it was rained out, but we were given more time to shop at Quincy Market to make up for it.

The next day was more interesting. We had to wake up at seven in the morn-ing to go on Duck Tours. Duck Tours are historical tours of Boston while riding in replicas of WWII amphibious vehicles. The tour last for about 80 minutes and then we went back on our bus to go back to Quincy Market. We were given more shopping time, as well as time to have lunch.

Afterward, we hopped back onto the bus to go to Newberry Street. Newberry Street had so many cool stores including Brandy Melville, Forever 21 and other clothing stores. We were also given time

to shop there and have dinner, before we went to a show called “Sheer Madness”. Sheer Madness is a really exciting play that involves the people in the audience. I won’t spoil what happens, but it was an amazing experience.

Our 3rd and final day, we went to a water park called “Water Country”. There were so many fun water rides, and my absolute favorite was a blue slide that was very steep, but also was very fun. We stayed there for three hours until going to a mall for an hour. We were told that we were only going to have dinner, but we had some extra time to shop.

Overall, Boston is a very fun trip and I hope 8th graders in the future also will agree.

Boston trip was a very fun timeby Sasha Sinel 8th Grade

Charley and Danbee: a chance meetingby Charlie Reiss 5th Grade

Rebecca shines as group leaderby Gabby de la Cruz 7th Grade

Have you ever wondered why you always have such a great time at

camp? Well, I’ll tell you that about half of the fun you have at camp is dependent upon your group leader. In this case, it is the ninth-grade group leader, Rebecca Toporoff.

In high school, Rebecca worked in after-school programs for elementary students. After she finished high school, Rebecca went to college at the University of Maryland. She started studying com-munications in 2013 and graduated this year. In college, Rebecca enjoyed doing community service during her free time.

However, camp has been part of Re-becca’s life since she was born because her parents, Mark and Amy, have worked at Danbee. She was a camper from 2002 to 2010, when she was a Wel-B-Yon. A year later Rebecca was a counselor in 2011. She was a WBY counselor for four

years and this year she became a group leader for the oldest girls on acres. When Rebecca discovered that she was a ninth-grade group leader she was happy because she would be on the Acres side of camp. Based on how the summer of 2017 is going, Rebecca enjoys being a group leader more than a counselor be-cause she can spend time with all of the ninth grade girls and be there for the rest of the age groups, too!

Rebecca believes that one difficult, yet, important part about being a group leader is managing time and making sure that everyone is happy – campers and counselors. A key reason is because if counselors aren’t happy, then the kids won’t be happy, either.

Another big role for a group leader is to solve problems from arguments to missing bags. In fact, one of the girls in my bunk had a missing bag for sev-

eral days. Later in the week, the sev-enth-grade group leader found her miss-ing bag inside the Wel-house because a camper in the Wel-house has the same last name as her.

We all know that camp sometimes can be stressful for campers and counselors, but especially for group leaders. Some-times on Rebecca’s day off or early eve-ning, she likes to get away from camp for a little while and go to the mall or grab a bite to eat and just to relax for a little bit.

As you can probably tell, being a group leader can be challenging, but also is a really fun job to have. Clearly, Rebec-ca enjoys being a group leader and is ex-cited to be one. Being a group leader can refresh your memories of being a camper at Danbee, just like the good old days!


Marathon is a huge part of Leagues. It’s a giant relay race

that takes place all around camp, from running bases to the “death runs”, every-one is involved.

There are two teams – the Americans and the Nationals. They are split up into six teams. For the Americans, the teams are: the Bears, Red, and Blue. For the Nationals, the teams are the Lions, Green and White.

Everyone is given a number that is written on their hand. That is the station that they are at for Marathon. This year, I am number 16 and I’m making a bowl on the wheel in Pottery. Marathon starts off with the Wel-B-Yon who rush to make their beds at the blacktop; once they are done they run to the next station and pass the baton to the next person. Once Marathon starts, everyone is at their sta-tion, waiting anxiously to be passed the baton and listening to what’s happening over the loud speaker.

Once everyone has passed the baton they make their way to the theater to wait for the team that will finish first. The last

station is behind the theater. The Wel-B-Yon has to make 5 layups on one side of the hoop and 5 layups on the other side. Once they’ve made all of the shots, they then rush to pull the string that will explode confetti and indicate the winner.

Overall, Marathon is a very important Leagues event; it’s the second to last event in Leagues, the final event being Songfest, where the Leagues winner is usually determined.

Marathon is big for leaguesby Sasha Sinel 8th Grade

Gaga has been at Danbee since 2013. In Gaga players are inside

an enclosed circle area with a ball. Play-ers swat the ball with their hands at-tempting to hit other players at the knee or below. When the ball hits a player, they are out of the game. Getting hit by the ball above the knee does not count.

There are a lot of different rules in Gaga, like turtling when you put two hands in front of you and bend down, which is considered cheating. Wall jumps are when you put your hands on the wall and boost yourself up to dodge the ball. You can team up with friends and aim at other players other than each other, or

you can aim for each other. There also is another rule where you only go for one person. The winner of each round gets to decide the rules that will be used, which is why we want to win so bad. When beginning the first game the first person to pick up the ball chooses the rules.

Gaga is a game from Israel. The games can be super competitive or super fun! Some people are better at dodging the ball then hitting it, or the other way around. Gaga may seem really easy, but you need practice to get good at it. The game can be very frustrating, too. In gaga you need patience, agility, positivity, honesty, sportsmanship and, most of all,

spirit.Some people like revenge Gaga, while

others prefer normal Gaga. Remi Potack says she thinks normal Gaga is better.

Some people like to team up and others like to go solo more. Caylin Brod says she likes to go solo more.

“I never know who I can trust in those games,” she says.

And some people are better at hitting the ball while others are good at dodg-ing the ball. Veronique Mintz says she is better at dodging the b all.

Gaga is a fun game that everyone should have a chance to try.

Gaga: Israeli game is a hitby Jolie Litvak 4th Grade


Ashley Sheichet, a ninth grader, has an amazing

talent in archery and continues to practice it at camp this summer. Camp had a big part in her love of archery because it was the place where she first tried it. As a young camper, Ashley learned archery at Danbee and really enjoyed it. So, when she went home at the end of the summer she had her mom find a place for her to continue with it. Since then, Ashley has great-ly improved and has become an advanced archer.

Now at home she practices once a week at the New Jersey School of Archery. She competes four times a year against other advanced female archers. One of the hardest parts of these compe-titions for Ashley is that a lot of her competitors practice much more then she does and started archery

much earlier than she did. Ashley faces many challenges

in archery, the main one being her strength. Since Ashley is small and not as strong as some of her competitors, it makes it harder for her to shoot from a longer distance. This is a challenge because when you turn a certain age you’re expected to be able to shoot from a certain distance. For example, because Ashley is 14 she’s expected to be shooting from 50 meters, or about 160 feet. But because of her strength she usually shoots from 30 meters, or about 98 feet. Although 30 meters is imnpressive, she is not meeting the expectations for her age, yet.

The big equipment is a huge part in archery. There is a lot of different equipment that is need-ed for archery, such as a bow, a stabilizer, a sight, a clicker, arrows,

and more. There is not only a lot of equipment; it also very expen-sive.

In just five years Ashley has be-come an accomplished and com-petitive archer and will continue with it. Along with continuing ar-chery Ashley has additional plans. This winter when Ashley turns fifteen she will become certified to coach archery as her first job.

Overall Ashley’s hard work has paid off. Ashley is an excellent an-other example of trying something new at camp. She tried archery for the first time not knowing how big of a role it would have in her life later on. In the end, if she hadn’t tried something new she would have never discovered her secret talent for archery.

Ashley is hitting her targetby Flora Zik 7th Grade

“Great dancers are not just great because of their technique; they are

GREAT because of their passion.” –Unknown}

Danbee Dance Crew is for elite dancers who want to push their limits and dance their hearts out! The head of Dance Crew, Erica Snodgrass, has had experience dancing since age 3. Erica enjoyed all types of dance growing up, including tap, jazz, musical theatre, hip-hop, and ballet.

Erica’s experience is extensive. She danced at the University of Victoria Dance Company and after one year there, she was asked to take over and

run the company. That’s some big shoes to fill! She did that for two years. She has been teaching dance for 17 years and has been at Danbee for nine years.

Erica created Dance Crew in 2011. The nine original dance members where Dylan Bell, Carly Kleinberg, Ariana Resnick, Sydney Slater, Alexa Diver-oli, Shoshi Wolf, Hallie Meland, Taylor Ginsberg and Kara Hochstadt. Out of nine of those members only one is still here at Danbee, Carly Kleinberg. Carly was the youngest member of the original crew. All the dances are choreographed by Erica. The dances they do range all over from ballet to hip-hop. This year the

focus was on jazz.

Every year Danbee holds Dancefest, which is where all campers in dance classes create a dance and wait for the big day to show it off! Dance Crew has a special surprise dance they do every year. When I asked Erica she said her favorite dance was this years. (So Danbee get pumped!) There also is a competition Dance Crew usually participate in yearly, but this year their dance was too advanced to finish it in time for the competition.

Dance Crew is for elite dancersby Summya Adigun 7th Grade


For campers, Danbee is a phone-free zone.

That simply means that on a day-to-day basis campers are not allowed to have their phones, or any device that might connect to the Internet. The philosophy is simple. By unplugging from the world of electronics campers have eliminated a key reason for not engaging with the people around them.

You see, life at Camp Danbee is about relationships and everything associated with that process. It’s about learning to communicate face-to-face, how to settle disputes, how to negotiate, how to collaborate, how to converse. It’s about learning skills that will serve them well throughout life.

Campers arrive at Danbee from near and far. From Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC, Virginia, Georgia, Florida., Kansas. They come from France, Switzerland, Mexico, and Dominican Republic. In all cases they have one thing in common – the Internet, which means social media.

As a project this summer in the Journalism and Media program, The Beeline decided to take a look at the role of social media in the lives of campers when they are home. We do not pretend that this is a thorough examination of that world of social media. For example, we did not examine regional differences. But we have developed a fascinating glimpse into how social media is used by campers. We did that by asking each camper to fill out an anonymous survey. We received 182 responses, which provides a good cross section of all age groups. The results are enlightening, if not all that surprising.

For instance, as campers age, the more likely they are to own a phone. Perhaps somewhat surprising, 41 percent of third grade campers and 36 percent of fourth grade campers report owning a phone. For seventh and eighth grade campers it is 98 percent and 94 percent

respectively. For ninth graders it is 100 percent.

Also as campers age their use of social media sites increases, which is not a surprise. The biggest jump occurs between fourth and fifth grade. Slightly more than half – 56 percent – of fourth graders report using social media, but that jumps to 80 percent for fifth graders. Social media access continues at higher levels and peaks at 100 percent for ninth graders.

Campers cited a host of various sites and apps they use – Instagram, Snapchat, Houseparty, Musical.ly, YouTube, VSCO, WhatsApp, Pinterest,

Twitter. However, when asked to choose their favorite, the field narrows quickly. Among the third and fourth grade campers, Misical.ly is the most popular. That begins to taper off with the fifth and sixth graders as interest in Instagram and Snapchat grows. By seventh grade Instagram and Snapchat are the dominant sites and by ninth grade three-fourths of the campers prefer Snapchat. Interestingly, but not a big surprise, Facebook is nowhere to be found among the favorite sites for any of the campers. That site is for people their parent’s age or older.

Now, as Internet speeds become

A Beeline Special Report: Campers and Social Mediaby Gary Hook Journalism Director

Favorite Social Media SitesAge Group Instagram Snapchat YouTube Musically3rd Grade 0% 14% 43% 43%4th Grade 31% 23% 0% 46%5th Grade 36% 9% 27% 27%6th Grade 38% 28% 13% 22%7th Grade 50% 50% 0% 0%8th Grade 47% 53% 0% 0%9th Grade 25% 75% 0% 0%

Source: Danbee Social Media Survey

Electronic Device OwnershipResponses

by age groupDo you own a cell phone?

Do you own a Computer/Laptop?

Do you own a tablet (iPad, etc.)?

Yes No Yes No Yes No3rd Grade 44% 56% 44% 56% 75% 25%4th Grade 36% 64% 16% 84% 80% 20%5th Grade 45% 55% 55% 45% 85% 15%6th Grade 88% 12% 71% 29% 29% 71%7th Grade 98% 2% 95% 5% 88% 12%8th Grade 94% 6% 89% 11% 78% 22%9th Grade 100% 0% 94% 6% 61% 39%


A Beeline Special Report: Campers and Social Mediaby Gary Hook Journalism Director


faster and more available, as social media sites and apps become more sophisticated and widespread, as the darker side of the Web makes headlines in the news, concerns about privacy and safety do not seem to be top of mind for campers, especially the older ones. This is the case despite the best efforts of parents and teachers to educate kids about the all too-real dangers that exist for anyone using the Internet.

Slightly more than seven in 10 of the younger campers cite a concern about Internet privacy and safety, which drops to barely six in 10 for the older girls. Meanwhile, the vast majority of campers report they have received a talk from someone about Internet safety and privacy. This is where parents and teachers are in lockstep. Almost all campers cite parents, or teachers, or parents and teachers as the ones who have discussed the subject of Internet safety.

According to survey results, some schools have invited outside experts, such as law enforcement officials, to address the subject of safety and privacy. In some instances where a school has a technology teacher, that person discusses the topic. There are commonalities among the advice and warnings given to campers regarding Internet safety and privacy, including watch what you post because anything on the Internet stays forever; never engage with anyone you don’t know; never share your passwords; keep your accounts private; don’t share personal information; tell an adult if you experience or witness bullying; don’t post inappropriate photos; your devices can be hacked.

Despite the concerns of parents and teachers, parental oversight of social media use is mixed. Overall, barely five in 10 campers say their parents put limits on the amount of time they spend with social media. That number drops to two in 10 for ninth graders. However, on average nearly seven in 10 campers say their

parents have access to their social media accounts. That ranges from a high of 80 percent for fifth graders to a low of 56 percent for ninth graders.

Then there is the issue of phones in school. This is an area where more leeway seems to be given to the higher grades. Only a third of the fourth and fifth grade campers said phones were allowed in their schools. The outlier among the younger campers is the third grade with more than half saying phones are allowed. Among the older campers, Two thirds to three fourths say phones are allowed.

When asked about rules or school policy governing phones in school, the responses vary. Some say they may have phones in school, but they must be turned off. Others say the phones must be kept in their school bag, or their locker. Still others say they may use their phones only on the bus, or at recess, or when school ends for the day. Some schools permit phone use during class for educational purposes with teacher approval. The strictest school policies prohibit phones all together and will confiscate them if students are seen with their phone. In a handful of instances, advance permission is required.

Campers of all ages live in a

fascinating, but more complex world than their parents, or grand parents, at the same age. The results of The Beeline survey show that Danbee campers are fully engaged with this world. What seems both inevitable and obvious is that their technological future still is being written.

A Beeline Special Report: Campers and Social Media(continued)

Phones in SchoolAre phones allowed in school?Age Group Yes No3rd Grade 50% 50%4th Grade 32% 68%5th Grade 35% 65%6th Grade 52% 48%7th Grade 64% 36%8th Grade 72% 28%9th Grade 72% 28%


Internet SafetyResponses

by age group

Are you concerned about personal safety or privacy

using the Internet?

Has anyone talked to you about safety or privacy

using the Internet?Yes No Yes No

3rd Grade 75% 25% 81% 19%4th Grade 76% 24% 84% 16%5th Grade 65% 35% 100% 0%6th Grade 81% 19% 95% 5%7th Grade 60% 40% 100% 0%8th Grade 56% 44% 100% 0%9th Grade 61% 39% 89% 11%


Bullying, as experts will tell you, is not an uncommon occurrence

among kids of all ages. But bullying in to-day’s world has another component – the anonymousness of the Internet and the widespread use of social media.

Even half of the Honey Bumbles at camp – 50 percent – have Internet access and have social media at home. Five of these youngest campers say they know someone who has been bullied through social media and three of them say have been bullied themselves, according to results of the social media survey distributed to all campers by The Beeline. On the older end of camp, every one of the ninth graders is connected to the Internet. The older the campers are, the more people know someone who has been bullied. They also use more social media. Sixty-one percent of the ninth graders say they know someone who has been bullied and 17 percent say they also have been bullied over social media.

What can we do to stop bullying on social media when even the youngest campers at Danbee have access to cell phones, laptops and tablets? This is an important question and

The Beeline decided to take a closer look at the issue of bullying through the

results of our survey and by talking to people at camp who have experience dealing with the issue.

Jay, one of Danbee’s two directors, says bullying at camp happens on oc-casion. “Every camp has bullying from time to time,” he said, “and camps that talk about it have less, so that’s why we address it here.”

Jay says the most important thing to prevent bullying is making sure that campers and counselors understand what bullying is and how to be kind. Danbee staff is trained about bullying and how it occurs in different forms with dif-ferent age groups. At the opening camp-fire, Jay makes sure to talk about Danbee being kind and when we play the Danbee anthem he always tells campers to think about something that reflects the Danbee philosophy. This usually has to do with being kind and anti-bullying.

Jay says that since we don’t have electronics at camp, we are able to take a break from the stress and pressures of social media, so during the summer we don’t have a problem. He says that outside of camp bullying through social media is a huge problem for kids today.

According to Jay, every age group experiences bullying, it just comes in dif-

ferent forms depending on the age group. He says the teen years can be hard to navigate.

Jay isn’t against social media. Dan-bee has an Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook account. They are used as a fast way to communicate with all peo-ple. There isn’t bullying on Camp social media accounts but, Jay says, kids use their personal accounts at home. Social media is a powerful tool, Jay says, but unfortunately he has seen bullying on social media.

“I advise campers not to write any-thing on social media you wouldn’t say face to face,” Jay says wisely.

Jay attends conferences to help un-derstand victims of bullying and how to stop the bully. He says he first has to talk about what it means to be a bully before anyone can be helped. He tries to em-power campers to not be bystanders, but to stand up to bullies. He says he tries to hold a mirror up to a bully and try to let them see how their actions affect others.

From his experience working at Dan-bee for 27 years, Jay says social media has made a bigger issue of bullying. It always has been around, but social media provides a faster way for bullying, making it harder for girls. Jay has seen things on social media where kids aren’t thinking about other people’s feelings. He says Finstas (“fake Instagram accounts” where kids post negative pictures instead of nice ones) are the worst because they can be anonymous and mean.

Jamie Miller, the director of soccer at camp, just moved to a new school back home in Canada. When asked if he had any experience or training in dealing with bullying, Jamie said his experience is just from being a teacher. He says he has seen a lot during 10 years teaching math, science, and physical education. He also says the training for all teachers is more general and only specialists or social workers are taught specifically about bullying.

Jamie says social media does in-

Bullying and Social Media is a serious issueby Sally Brouhard 7th Grade

Bullying Over Social MediaResponses

by age groupHave you been

bullied?Do you know

someone bullied?Have you bullied

anyone?

Yes No Yes No Yes No3rd Grade 20% 80% 31% 69% 6% 94%4th Grade 8% 92% 24% 76% 4% 96%5th Grade 10% 90% 45% 55% 5% 95%6th Grade 7% 93% 37% 66% 0% 100%7th Grade 7% 93% 60% 40% 2% 98%8th Grade 17% 83% 56% 44% 0% 100%9th Grade 17% 83% 61% 39% 0% 100%



fluence bullying at school. It is a fast platform for bullying to happen. Kids are able to hide behind their phones; it is harder to bully someone face-to-face than through an electronic device.

When his school was brand new and they were in a temporary building they had no policy regarding phones in school, they just followed the rules of that building. Now, in their new location they have established more rules and phones have to stay in lockers unless a teacher asks students to use them for educational purposes. Jamie said he doesn’t agree with these rules and thinks phones should be allowed out of lockers and in class, so students can learn to use electronics responsibly.

Jamie teaches students between the ages of 11 and 13. He says bullying was the same for both his old and new school. Children are the same no matter the school. Jamie says kids use social media to bully others various ways such as pictures, comments, and texts. He says all social media is just a different way to do the same thing, but the trend, whether it’s Instagram or Snapchat, has changed.

At his current school, there is no program to teach children how to be safe on social media. At his old school, an ex-police officer who now runs a com-pany on this topic, came every year and did a presentation for both students and parents about how to be safe online. He is not sure what his new school is planning. There is a lot of controversy about what happens on the weekends affecting children at school. Technical-ly, on the weekends the school cannot control kids, but they come to school and what happened is still affecting them. He thinks parents have to take more action because kids are too young to know how to handle that themselves.

Jamie has an interesting perspective on what he will do to protect and guide his children through using their phones and social media. He says he can’t

picture his kids walking around holding phones. By the time they are older the world will be totally different, the world changes so fast.

“Ten years ago phones were not prev-alent like they are now,” he said. He just wants to prepare his kids for whatever is happening in the world at that time.

Lisa Bezborodko, the social work-er at camp, says it would be foolish to say there is no bullying at camp. Lisa says everything depends on the child’s perspective on what bullying is. She says some kids will come to her and say that they couldn’t play a game with some other kids. That child thinks they are be-ing bullied. For kids, being isolated from others is being bullied. She says the best thing to do to help is to have awareness and supervision of both the kid who is being bullied and the bullies.

Lisa says social media affects children because they are exposed to too many things too fast. They have no protec-tion from anything they can find online. Social media has allowed people, not just children, to hide behind their electronics to be mean. Social media is a fast way to get people together, so bullying affects kids fast. She says kids are growing up too quick.

When she sees that there is some-thing happening, Lisa talks to the camp-ers and counselors to see if what they are seeing is accurate. Then she will watch what is happening herself, and if neces-sary, she will have a bunk meeting. Often times, kids act differently when there is an adult around.

Here at camp counselors help, then the heads of campus and acres. If what-ever is happening is still continuing then she will intervene. Lisa said campers have to turn to their counselors first.

At home, Lisa is a school social worker. She says at work social media definitely affects bullying. She says she is always interfering with different posts. What you put on the Internet stays for life. She has had lots of situations where

she had to get parents involved because of something that happened online.

Lisa said in the 11 years she has been at Danbee, there has never been a very severe case of bullying.

“Bullying is an act that children choose to do,” she said.

Social Media influences bullying wherever there is access to it. Many peo-ple, not just children, hide behind their phones. Too often, social media is used as a fast, easy avenue to bully others. Unfortunately, there is no fast, easy way to stop bullying.

Bullying and Social Media is a serious issue (continued)


Before Facebook or any social media became popular, there was

something called MySpace that was created in 2003. MySpace was similar to Facebook, but its users were more inter-ested in the look of their profile than what the site did itself.

Now, MySpace still exists, but very few people use it. It has been taken over by all the other social media platforms, more specifically, Facebook.

Today, social media has become more advanced and a greater distraction for younger and older users. In the social media surveys distributed to campers by The Beeline, 44 percent of Honey Bum-bles owned a phone. Honey Bumbles are going into third grade. Thirty-six percent of fourth graders, 45 percent of fifth graders, 88 percent of sixth graders, 98 percent of seventh graders, 94 percent of eighth graders and 100 percent of ninth graders said they own a phone.

Meanwhile, research conducted by Common Sense Media in 2016 surveyed 1,240 parents and kids from the same household – 620 parents and 620 kids – and the results are eye opening.

According to findings posted on the Common Sense Media website, “50 percent of teens ‘feel addicted’ to mobile devices, and 59 percent of their parents agree that their kids are addicted.”

Other findings from the Common Sense Media website include:

• Frequency: Seventy-two percent of teens and 48 percent of par-ents feel the need to immediately respond to texts, social-networking messages.

• Distraction: Seventy-seven percent of parents feel their children get distracted by their devices and don’t pay attention when they’re together.

• Conflict: One-third of parents and teens say they argue with each other on a daily basis about device use.

• Risky behavior: Fifty-six percent of parents admit they check their mo-bile devices while driving; fifty-one percent of teens see their parents checking/using their mobile devic-es when driving.

Social media use increases steadily by age group. Fifty-six percent of fourth graders said they use social media, according to The Beeline survey. That jumps to 80 percent of fifth graders, 88 percent of sixth graders, 95 percent of seventh graders, 94 percent of eighth graders and 100 percent of ninth graders.

For many people, phones and social media are useful. However, for some people, social media can have a very

negative impact on their lives. If you post something on social media, you have to know it will always be there, even if you try to delete it.

A girl’s softball team of 12- to 14-year-olds recently learned that lesson the hard way. According to the Washington Post, The Atlee junior league softball team from Mechanicsville, Va., was disqualified from the nationally televised championship game at the Junior League World Series in Kirkland, Wash., after one team member posted a photo on her Snapchat account following a victory of six teammates holding up their middle fingers under the caption, “watch out host.” A Little League spokesman called the post “inappropriate” in a statement, explaining that it violated the league’s “policies regarding unsportsmanlike conduct.”

Sometimes, kids post things without thinking about what it can do to other people’s feelings and their reputation. It is always important that children are talked to about the dangers of social media. Whether it is from their teachers, parents, or older siblings, it is always important.

What is an appropriate age for kids to get a phone is an ongoing debate among parents, educators and researchers. In an article for the website Parenting.com, Jeana Lee Tahnk writes, “Unfortunately, there’s no cut-and-dry answer. Family circumstances, a child’s maturity level and the real need for a cell phone all contribute to when the right time is.”

As The Beeline survey suggests parents of Danbee campers are making individual and varied decisions about when their child should have a cell phone.

Social Media has evolved since it was created. So have children and people’s views on it. Some people think it is one of the best thing ever created and some thing that the world would be better with-out it. Regardless, social media is here to stay and it and the technology that pow-ers it will continue to evolve. The import-ant thing is that we all pay attention.

Social Media use a challenge for parents and kidsby Emma Arabian 6th Grade

Social Media UseResponses

by age groupDo you use social media sites/apps?

Do your parents limit social media

use?

Can your parents access your social

media sites?Yes No Yes No Yes No

3rd Grade 50% 50% 43% 57% 75% 25%4th Grade 56% 44% 50% 50% 63% 38%5th Grade 80% 20% 55% 45% 80% 20%6th Grade 88% 12% 45% 55% 64% 36%7th Grade 95% 5% 50% 50% 57% 43%8th Grade 94% 6% 56% 44% 72% 28%9th Grade 100% 0% 22% 78% 56% 44%


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Banquet theme is Tangled - THE DANBEE BEELINE · waterskiing. He can stay up for a while and he also is good at wakeboarding. But something even cooler is that sometimes he waterskis