CAMP Connect

If you travel on vacation, I am sure that you have had a similar experience. This was how our first day went. We got up at 2:00 a.m.; drove out of Rehoboth Beach by 4:00 a.m.; arrived at the Philadelphia Airport by 6:00 a.m. for the 8 o’clock flight to St. Thomas stopping in San Juan, Puerto Rico to change planes. Then we took the island taxi from the St. Thomas airport to the ferry dock and did the 35 minute boat ride to St. John and the resort shuttle to the villa arriving at 5:00 p.m. (I was afraid to have the "welcome" rum punch for fear I would drop in my tracks.) Please understand I am not complaining. The destination makes the travel worthwhile. However, when the wonderfully well trained resort representative said, "Welcome Home," I was nearly brain-dead and wondered what he was talking about. It is true that we own the timeshare week so it is "home" for seven days but it doesn’t feel like home to me.

Actually, for the rest of the week the "Welcome Home" phrase kept playing through my head. I know what the resort is trying to accomplish by using the phrase and a part of it is to engender loyalty and good will with their owners. I kept comparing that to the real feeling I had each time I came to Rehoboth before we moved here and it just felt false. Without actually living here in Rehoboth, I felt that I was coming home. Quite a few of our friends have told us the same thing. They had a sense of belonging and of feeling safe here.

At least once a month, I say to my partner, Mary, "I love living here." In this community, people are good to each other. Friends go the extra mile; neighbors offer help. When someone is down, people make the effort to offer something uplifting. I see and hear examples of it over and over again here at CAMP Rehoboth. Sometimes CAMP staff can do something of benefit and other times we are the conduit for bringing people together.

Founders’ Circle

You may remember in the last issue, I predicted that we would reach $1 million paid by spring. Here we are two weeks early and we topped $1 million in paid contributions to the Founders’ Circle! This is still another example of the community’s caring and generosity. I love this community! While the Founders’ Circle is closed to new memberships, many members have chosen to add to or upgrade their own memberships. This has made a great difference in our total contributions. The result is that our current totals stand at $1,299,799.17 pledged with $1,003,547.37 of those pledges being fulfilled.

Keep being good to each other. You are what make this community so special.