Programs

A Letter to Parents

Dear Families and Friends,

We are all thrilled to present you and your family with a small, personal, supportive and challenging Summer Tennis Camp, the culmination of many generations of quality camp programming. It truly is the "Best of the Best" Selecting the appropriate camp experience will yield many wonderful benefits for the rest of your child's life.

The magical chemistry of Program, Faculty and Peers will nurture and foster the healthy, happy and safe development of your child that you have so painstakingly orchestrated. When we do our job right we become your four or two week partner in parenting, and when our approach supports yours, BINGO! We all have a FUN-Tastic summer!

My son, Christopher and daughter Hanna are the fourth generation of my family to be involved with this 97-year-old camp. I am proud to have inherited such a grand tradition of providing powerful and life-altering growth experiences for boys and girls. The Kennebec Camps, established in 1907 as the Premier Tennis Camp and Outdoor Adventure Camp, long known as the Harvard of Camps, created the Maine Tennis Academy and the Maine Golf Academy in response to parents cries for more than just another "Specialty Camp" at a college or private school campus.

Parents have not been satisfied housing their youngsters in a dormitory or hotel room, a location which best use is as a prep school or college dorm room for 19 - 22 year olds not young campers. With little supervision and with little to do other than play golf for 4-5 days is just not good enough.

At Kennebec and the Maine Tennis Academy, we kept our 95-year old tradition of the wholesome camp experience and added to it the high quality specialty instruction and play of Tennis and Golf.

We believe that our camp program, especially with the interest in Tennis and Golf that first ignites a young campers interest to venture up to Maine, fosters a sense of courage, independence and resourcefulness that few other places can rival. Young boys and girls develop life long connections, relationships, and skills in this nurturing environment. Generations of "Kennebecers" return to this very spot year after year and give testimony to the fact that the values and lessons learned here provided the foundations for their personal and professional development and success. We have selected and sought out for you the Best of Best: Safe, fun, and challenging traditional programs in tennis and summer camping, are lead by the finest staff and faculty.

We have selected the most popular trips and activities, the most innovative sports instruction techniques, the most caring counselors, the most knowledgeable and "kid friendly" professional instructors, and of course, the most picturesque and rustic Maine Summer Camp nestled along the shores of Lake Salmon. Our approach is nurturing, supportive and challenging. We believe that this is a time when your son or daughter can learn new social skills, practice old ones, stretch further than he or she imagined and learn above all that life is what you make it.

Needless to say it is quite a stretch for your son or daughter to bunk with 8-10 others, share a bathroom, walk to the shower house and have to clean up for the communities well being daily. Somehow it has become a wonderful American tradition to have kids make their bed at camp, sweep the floor, and care about how they effect others in their little world.

Kennebec's credo has long been "Leave your campsite in a Better Condition than you found it. We are honored to contribute to your child's life and we know that we are establishing values for the rest of his or her life for which they will be rewarded in ways greater than they can imagine.

My wife, Crista and I, along with our our entire staff, look forward to sharing with you the joy this wonderful institution has brought to so many others.

I know you will be as thrilled to have discovered us as we are to have found you.

Till we meet in person,

We are respectfully yours in camping,

Joel Lavenson, MA, NCC, LPC- Owner
Marriage and Family Therapist

Crista Lavenson, CBA - Owner