Essa Britt Selected As Honor Camper

Out of the nearly 3,000 campers who attended YMCA Camp Ernst this year, Essa Britt was among the two percent who won the prestigious Honor Camper Award.

A tradition since 1928, Honor Camper was created by Willard  L. Wade (Camp Ernst's founder) to recognize campers with outstanding character and leadership.

Camp Ernst's staff of more than 100 nominate and vote on campers who they believe display the YMCA core character values of honesty, caring, respect, and responsibility at the end of each weeklong session.  After the counselors' votes are tallied, the Honor Campers are publicly recognized during the week's closing campfire.  The counselors that nominated them read speeches about the Honor Campers' impact on camp and present them with tin cups with their individual names engraved on them.  Identical cups are hung in YMCA Camp Ernst's oldest structure  - the historic Dining Hall.  Hundreds of cups line the rafters in the Dining Hall, some of them dating back to the 1940s.

"Campers like Essa made our jobs easier," counselor Morgan Ruebusch said.  "We do not just want to recognize the fastest runner in the track meet or the best singer at the campfire, but also those who helped others and showed true leadership all week."

"Essa is a very influential camper who has impacted her peers through sincerity and kindness in real, every day terms," Camp Director Elizabeth "Eli" Cochran said.  "We're very proud of her."

Congratulations Essa!