|
Making A Connection From Camp To Camp
By Carolyn Casey, The Kansas City Star
In the woods at Camp Prairie Schooner the smell of cinnamony breakfast emerges from a bustling campsite. Eight-year-old Ali Manske, who is spending this week at the Girl Scout Camp, rolls her dough in butter and cinnamon, wraps it around a stick, and holds it over the flames.
As the clouds roll in on one of Ali's last few days of camp, her father, Col. Mike Manske, is winding down another typical day at Camp Blue Diamond — coordinating civil affairs, running meetings on reconstruction projects and meeting with local sheiks and provincial leaders in Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
Although worlds apart, Mike can send e-mail messages to Ali while she's in the middle of the woods and look at her in pictures on a new sort of Web site.
The days of camp mail-call no longer involve a stamp and envelope.
As many as 10,000 “bunk notes” a day are sent to kids at 2,000 camps throughout the country via www.bunk1.com, said Ari Ackerman, CEO and founder of Bunk1.com. Prairie Schooner is among a growing number of camps with online Web sites keeping children and their parents connected. Each camp prints out the e-mails, which cost about $1 each, and gives them to the campers during mail delivery. The campers can then write a note on the printout, which is faxed to a toll-free number, then sent electronically to their parents' e-mail address.
“It's really good for Mike because he can't mail letters in time to get there on the right day,” said Amy Manske of Prairie Village, Mike's ex-wife. “So this way he'll be able to be a part of it … and Dad's the camper in the family, so for him not to be here and help pack, we're really missing him.”
The Manskes e-mail each other almost every day and talk on the phone once a week.
“We keep it light and chatty, just like we used to do around the dinner table every evening,” Mike said in an e-mail interview, “talking about how our days went and what made us smile.”
He said he wants to stay connected with his daughters, Ali and Molly, 6, because they understand people die in wars.
Mike, a law professor at Washburn University in Topeka, served in Iraq last year and was deployed again in February. He expects to stay on active duty with the 1st Marine Division through the end of the year, working out of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.
As an infantry officer running a special staff section, he travels to the government center almost every day with an eight-vehicle patrol passing through hostile zones.
Ali, whose favorite thing about her dad is that he helps her with everything, said she is very proud of him and thinks it is cool that he is in Iraq helping people.
Ali and her sister “trust us so much,” Amy Manske said, “and they know what he's doing is really, really good, and he's making good for the country. And they're willing to share their dad for a while, and they just accept it.”
For this first trip away from home to sleepover camp, Ali filled her bag with her mess kit, flashlight, bug repellent, new stationery and some of her dad's old camping supplies.
“It's hard letting go,” Mike said earlier this week. “I've already sent three notes to her.”
On this day at camp, after “clean up time” is called, Ali washes her mess kit in a bucket with soap and puts it back in the cluttered four-girl tent. Bathing suits and towels dry on the railings as girls dig through their pink accessories to dress their counselor for the Prairie Fairy Contest.
As Ali and the other campers march down the trail for the contest, most of the troops at Camp Blue Diamond have been in and out of the chow hall for dinner. In only a few hours, Mike will retire to his temporary quarters next to three helicopter landing zones, hoping for no mortar or rocket attacks tonight.
To reach Carolyn Casey, features reporter, send e-mail to ccasey@kcstar.com .
|
|
BUNK1 MESSENGER IS LAUNCHED
By: Andrew Ackerman
TECHNOTRENDS: BEYOND CAMPER EMAIL
-
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?
By: Andrew Ackerman
TECHNOTRENDS: CELLPHONES, BLACKBERRIES ... WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?
(A LOT, ACTUALLY)
By: Andrew Ackerman
WHAT IF PHONE CALLS WERE AS EASY AS EMAIL?
By: Andrew Ackerman
THREE YEARS OF COPING WITH COPPA
By: Andrew Ackerman
KEEPING YOUR WEBSITE FRESH
By: Andrew Ackerman
10 THINGS YOUR CAMP WEBSITE ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE
By: Andrew Ackerman
STAFFING
YOUR CAMP IN THE AFTERMATH OF SEPTEMBER 11TH
By: Andrew Ackerman
COPING
WITH COPPA:
PROTECTING CAMPERS' PRIVACY AND AVOIDING BIG GOVERNMENT FINES
By: Michael Steinig, Bunk1.com
CAMP
SEARCH ENGINES: IF YOU BUILD IT… SO WHAT?
By: Andrew Ackerman and Ari Ackerman
|
