Everyone knows that friendships are made at camp, but sometimes it is hard to understand exactly why the friendships are so strong and long lasting. We have been exploring some of those reasons, but before we get into that, let us introduce ourselves.

Our names are Maggie Mullenix and Mary Beth Muslow, but most people call us by our joint name Maggie-Beth. This is our seventh year coming to Jacobs Camp. We met in second year Garin and have been inseparable ever since. We unfortunately have reached our last year as campers in Chalutzim; it has been a bittersweet experience for the both of us. Our friendship is so special compared to our friendships at home. We are so close that we often finish each other’s sentences, so we decided to write a blog about just that.

Each year we come back and pick up where we left off, sometimes even closer than we were the year before. We constantly ask ourselves why our friendship is so much stronger than our friendships at home, and we have come up with a few answers. First, we have been friends for seven whole years, which is a lot longer than most of our friendships at home; this time allowed us to grow together, and we each played a role in shaping who we are today. Second, at camp we rely more on our friends due to the fact that our parents are not here. This helps us to gain responsibility for our friends and ourselves whether it is making sure we remember to brush our teeth or cheering on our friends at the tower. Lastly, we spend every waking second with our friends at camp from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed. Camp friendships, such as ours, last a lifetime.

We live four and a half hours away from each other, which makes it difficult to see one another throughout the year. We don’t let that stop us; we keep in touch through social media and other formats. In this day in time, social media is made out to be a bad thing amongst teens, but in our situation it has helped to keep our friendship strong. We have also started thinking about our future. We both share similar goals and aspirations. Mary Beth’s mom is a strong advocate for us to go to LSU in Baton Rouge due to the fact that we are best friends and live relatively close to the campus. We also both strive to go into the medical field, and believe we can do so with each other’s help and support.

Jacobs Camp brought us together and gave us experiences that shaped our friendship into what it is today. Maybe we got lucky, or maybe that’s just what Jacobs Camp does; it brings people together and creates bonds that last a lifetime. Whatever the reason, the Jacobs magic worked on us, and for that we are thankful.

Maggie-Beth

Chalutzim Campers