Grace at camp

[Skater Bubbles]

Do you say grace at your camp before meals? Is your camp for a specific religion?

My camp is primarly a christian camp, it's a Y camp, but there are kids there who aren't religious at all. We do graces right before each meal. We do the sing songy graces like the johnny appleseed grace, adams family grace and stuff. If the kids don't feel right doing it, they just don't sing or anything.

[camper]

we're not affiliated w/a jewish organization or any religion for that matter, but we say a prayer before every meal. friday night we do shabbat blessings at dinner. the other times it's prayers like "ohhhhhh the lord is good to me, and so i thank the lord, for giving me the things i need the sun and the rain and the appleseed the lord is good to me" and others like that.

[Flower]

We don't say grace together, but we do have a moment of silence. Someone says amen, and the meal starts. My camp is private with no religious affiliation. The campers are mainly either Jewish or Christian, as are the counselors. It works well for us, I think.

[camplover86]

We are a girl scout camp, we sing fun graces before each meal. The campers are told that if they do not want to/don't feel right singing them, they don't have to.

[CAMPFRIEND]

We also have a moment of silence. We did do grace at our overnight camp.
________
grape ape marijuana strain (http://trichomes.org/marijuana-strains/grape-ape)

[Fallen]

I work at Girl Scout camps and we normally do grace, but since Girl Scouts really isn't a Christian organization like it was ages ago so some camps have done a meal apperication like reading a quote before meal rather than grace.

[Flukie]

We are a GS camp - we try to focus staff on non-denominational graces or at least encourage them that if they sing a religous grace in the morning, to sing a non-denominational in the evening. It was a transition year for our staff - and a lot didn't understand why. But when you have campers and staff that are made uncomfortable in the dining hall because of the graces and songs others pick to sing - it isn't fair to them.

[Indigo]

We're a GS camp too, and we sing fun non-denominational graces before every meal. One of the new staff last summer tried introducing a new one, and it was really great (to the tune of Queen's "We Will Rock You"), but it mentioned Jesus, so the ad staff said we couldn't sing it anymore after a while.

[daisy]

i work at a YMCA camp, and before every meal we say the same blessing...
"Our Father, for this day, for our friends, for this food, we thank thee. Amen."
i've never heard anyone complain about it, but if kids dont want to say it, as long as they are respectful during it, its not an issue

[campCardinal]

I work at a YMCA Camp.

We sing graces before each meal. We have many to choose from...
-The Superman Grace
-Spiderman Grace
-Flinstone Grace
-Nick at Night Grace
-Johnny Appleseed (morning and afternoon)
-Rock and Roll Grace
-Rise and Shine
-Yankee Doodle

AND SO MANY MORE!

[rockinsmiles]

Before every meal the campers line up outside the dinning hall and sing camp songs. Then we we go into the dinning hall and everyone is quiet we normally have a quote and a moment of silence. However with or in place of the quote we sometimes sing a grace song which might be: Superman Grace, Johnny Appleseed, and the Adam's Family i think those are the only ones we do.

[Dave]

I work at a Jewish camp so we say the Hamotzi before lunch. Well, actually we turn it into a song so it's not as Jewish because not all the campers are Jewish.

[Skater Bubbles]

Wow Campcardinal I might have to pick your brain before summer starts because my camp has a few of the same graces as you, but it looks like you have some great ones that I would love to have the words for!!

[Fallen]

GS camps use to do those fun graces like Campcardinal mentioned, but they have been trying to get away from them the last few years.

[camper]

haha dave...is it this song?

hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz, we give thanks to g-d for bread, our voices rise in song together, as our joyful prayer is said. baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz, ah, ah, men!

that's my temple version haha.

[Dave]

haha dave...is it this song?

hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz, we give thanks to g-d for bread, our voices rise in song together, as our joyful prayer is said. baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz, ah, ah, men!

that's my temple version haha.
:laugh2: :scare: That's it! I never thought I'd say this, but it was so nice to just sing that to myself again! I can remember every kid in the cafeteria screaming it at the top of their lungs, every day.

[Trees]

I work at a GS camp and we don't do graces at all. Even a non-denominational grace is still a Judeo-Christian thing. And I don't think it's fair to just say that people who don't want to do it can just be silent--for one, they're being excluded because of their beliefs, and for another, even if you're silent you're still participating by listening. Some people don't like graces because they aren't religious, but keep in mind that many people who are religious don't like so-called "fun" graces because they find them disrespectful. GSUSA no longer recommends graces before meals (they don't use them at official GSUSA events or the conference center), though it doesn't forbid them.

We sing short songs to open the meals, or have a moment of silence, and I've also worked at camps where they use quotes to open the meal as Fallen says.

Some staff members would not even try to understand this point of view and would try to sneak religious graces in when the ad staff weren't around. Blech.

[who_stole_my_loofa]

At my Jewish camp we also sing Ha Motzi before meals and the Birkat Ha'mazon after.

Loofa

[Flukie]

Tree, I do agree. However, just getting rid of it would probably have caused a riot! :) I had everything I could do to get the Noah song out and the Spirit song changed. Ugh. I personally love the graces and some of the songs - but it isn't fair to those that don't feel comfortable with it. As a trainer for our Council, I try so hard to impress upon leaders that you need to know your girls if you are going to sing grace - for example, all 37 of my girls in my troop go to Catholic school. Obviously, we can do grace. :) However, at camp, you don't know... It's so hard. So banning it won't work outright (we don't need that many disgruntled campers and staff) but changing to non-denom is a start. So we opt for graces that just say thanks - to whoever you want it to be! :)

[melon4382]

We say grace before dinner at my camp. We are a Chrisian/Catholic camp. Our graces are often fun ones like Our God is Awesome God.

[CAMPFRIEND]

It's so intresting to see that we all work at different camps, and for a lot of us it seem that we do the same activities. But now that we are talking about graces ho so many camps are different. I know that being in the south it more expected to do some kind of grace at each meal and snack. That is what the parents expect. When I lived up north, I went to church just on Sunday mornings. In the south is seems that people spent a lot more thin at church. Most spent Wednesday night, Sunday morning go home and than come back Sunday evening. I just thought it was interesting!
________
Honda VF1000F (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Honda_VF1000F)

[Kerrbear]

We sing a song before every meal. For the supper song, all the staff stands with their arms around each other and kicks their feet can-can style, it's awesome, I always kick the highest (woo dance!)

[campnerd99]

My camp is a church camp so we do sing graces before every meal but it's nothing overly serious. The most popular are, Johnny Apple Seed, Adams Family, Peanut Butter, Yankee Doodle, Flintstones and Rub-a-dub-dub.