Veteran Camper Turned Counselor Reflects on 15yrs at OTC

Adam Simon on “the Georgios effect”

One of the highlights of going to camp for me is getting to work with Georgios Tsangaris. Georgios came to camp when he was 15 for our first summer, and now he’s 31. He has only missed two years of camp during those sixteen years.

Georgios knows our camp culture as well as anyone because he created so much of it. At camp, he is what we call a pod leader (other camps might call it a division head), for the 15 and 16-year-old boys. He brings so much heart, patience, humor, honesty, fun, and originality to everything he does. I asked him if he would write something to tell people what OTC is all about. Here’s how he describes our camp.

Through the eyes of Georgios Tsangaris

Georgios at 15 years old

At Odyssey Teen Camp, we are a temporary intentional community organized around making teens feel safe and supported as they experiment with new ideas, challenge their own assumptions, and make new friendships.

The staff and programming at Odyssey Teen Camp are eclectic and change a little every year. Still, the camp’s mission remains the same:

OTC creates a space that temporarily ends and challenges the uglier parts of life: judgment, bullying, materialism, and division, to name a few.

Almost all teenagers can thrive in an environment that discourages judgment and encourages sincerity. It’s pretty common for a sporty and popular high schooler to come to OTC and open up like never before, make lots of friends, play a lot, and grow as a person. Lots of teens who feel trapped in playing the game of being cool and popular blossom in a situation where those social expectations and rules are suspended.

But often, the teens that get the most out of camp are the kind that don’t quite fit in at school, the teens that are too weird to be popular, the teens whose fashion choices seem bizarre (but will probably be trendy in 10 years), the teens that are already searching for something more fulfilling than just an ordinary life.

There are many unhealthy ways that teenage rebellion and experimentation can be directed – here at camp, we focus on channeling that energy in positive directions. We foster a sense of community that honors every kind of camper.

At OTC, friendships develop between different kinds of teens that would almost never interact in a normal high school social scene.

Find out about staff culture at Odyssey Teen Camp