Welcome back for our third entry in the Camp Promise Spotlight series! This month, we are talking to one counselor who has attended all three camps – Jenna Dwy! Jenna is a camp staple at this point, she’s that person that everyone just loves. And I do mean everyone since she’s been involved with just about every camp! I can’t wait for you all to get to know her just a little better.
Camp Profile
- Name: Jenna Dwy
- Camper or Volunteer: Volunteer
- Camps Attended: East, West and Rockies
- Years in Attendance: 4 years
- Cabin(s): Green, red and orange!
Favorite Things
- Favorite Movie: How to Train Your Dragon
- Favorite Band: Dr. Dog
- Favorite Food: Barbeque anything
- Favorite Color: Orange
- Dream Job: Lawyer
How would you describe yourself?
Easy-going, goofy, Jess from New Girl mixed with Ron from Kim Possible.
How did you hear about Camp Promise?
There was an email that went out at UConn to people who were in the Physician Assistant school group, and for a while I wanted to do that so that’s how I found out about it.
You have attended all three camps – what cabins did you attend in each camp? How many years did you attend each of the camps?
At East, I was green, red and orange. At Rockies, I was only orange. And at West I was actually prolo. (staff cabin) I attended East all 4 years. Rockies was 2 years, and West was just one year.
Off of that, what made you want to do all three camps? Most counselors stay at their “local” one, but you are one of the few who’s done all three.
It was just kind of I could do it, what made me stop doing it was because like I just couldn’t. I just kind of loved camp so much, and you know when you’re at camp and everyone – like I guess it was more Libby and Terin – they were mentioning “oh at this camp this happened” and other people would visit other camps. I was like I want to know what that’s like too. It’s the best week of the summer, so why not have 2 more best weeks of the summer.
Would you recommend other counselors try doing all three?
Oh yeah, definitely!
You had mentioned a little bit ago that you were originally in the Physician Assistant program and you stopped. What do you switch too and why?
I decided to not to do P.A because I’m interested in going into the disability rights field but it was more, like medicine was fixing disability and what I was more interested in is was the more civil rights, discrimination – that type of disability rights. And I was like I’m not getting that at all here [in the P.A program.]
Then I took my first disability rights course at UConn and it then introduced me to exactly what’s happening. So then I dropped the P.A route, I did an individualized major in disabilities studies and human rights – another major – and I’ve been working at Mass General for 2 years since graduating. And I’m about to start law school next week!
What is your ultimate goal with this career path?
I guess what I really want to see me doing is like, I think I’m a good communicator and good listener so I think I’m really good at listening to the disabled community and then also carrying that back to the non disabled community and communicating that across. Like the ADA just got signed in the 90s, a lot of the law is still up in the air until it goes into the court system and people talk about it.
And because when I grew up, my mom had a spinal cord injury so we had the low income from social security, so I’m just aware that if you are disabled and are in need of legal assistance you are in a crunch. I want to be able to step in and do that.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
The Netherlands, because you can see the Northern Lights and I feel like there’s a lot of nature and stuff to see. But there’s also Amsterdam is there, so I could see some sight-seeing, and the food looks good. I was supposed to go to Portugal this past week, going to Europe for the first time, but with what’s going on right now I didn’t.
Last question, how would you describe camp in one phrase? What does camp mean to you?
Cloud nine, for lack of a better one. When we’re there, it’s our little utopian place. It’s perfect.
