Camp Androscoggin

Camp Androscoggin
Official seal of Camp Androscoggin
Seal
Nickname: 
Camp Andro
Motto: 
Help the Other Fellow
Camp Androscoggin is located in Maine
Camp Androscoggin
Camp Androscoggin
Location within the state of Maine
Coordinates: 44°20′58″N 70°3′25″W / 44.34944°N 70.05694°W / 44.34944; -70.05694
CountryUnited States
StateMaine
CountyKennebec
Founded1907
Elevation
299 ft (91 m)
Population
 • TotalAbout 275 campers
Time zoneUTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP code
04284
Area code207
FIPS code23-80880
GNIS feature ID0582796

Camp Androscoggin is an all-boys summer camp in Wayne, Maine, and one of the oldest in the state. It is ACA (American Camp Association) accredited.[1] It was founded in 1907 by Edward M. Healy,[2] a Department Head at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Healy became President of the American Camping Association (ACA) in 1916 shortly before his death.

The camp has an average intake of between 250 and 280 boys aged 8 to 15 years, and takes enrollments nationally and internationally.

History

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Camp Androscoggin riflery program in 1971

Camp Androscoggin was established in 1907 on Sans Souci Island, renamed "Androscoggin Island" over a century ago, in Lake Androscoggin. During the camp's inaugural summer, only 7 campers were enrolled. In 1937, a new "Junior Camp" was added on the lake's shore, which was initially for campers aged 8 to 11 years. The two camps briefly combined during World War II due to a fuel shortage, and combined permanently inland in 1972 after a fire. Androscoggin was the site of the third and fourth Seeds of Peace camps in 1995–96.[3][4][5]

Camp Androscoggin has had many notable campers including Stephen Sondheim,[6] Alan Jay Lerner,[7] Tom Lehrer, William Zeckendorf, Curtis Schenker, Craig Effron, and Si Newhouse.[8]

Jeffrey Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots,[9] both attended Andro, meaning that both team owners in Super Bowl XXXIX and Super Bowl LI are alumni, and, combined, Androscoggin alums have won seven Super Bowls as NFL team owners.

Activities

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An aerial view of Camp Androscoggin located on Lake Androscoggin taken in July 2021.

Camp Androscoggin is part of the Central Maine Camp League (CMCL), competing with Camps Cobbossee, Caribou, Manitou, and others camps in sports, including baseball, soccer, tennis, basketball, archery, and swimming.

Land sports take place on its two baseball fields, two soccer fields, three basketball courts, twelve tennis courts, archery and rifles ranges, and a climbing wall. A recent addition to sport facilities is the Foster Fieldhouse, with a high school regulation-sized basketball court.

Water sports use a 2,000-foot-long (610 m) shoreline for competitive and instructional swimming, sailing, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing, waterskiing and wakeboarding.[10]

Arts and crafts, pottery, woodworking, photography, video, and animation take place in an arts center and a media center, and a theater holds musical talent shows and plays, and the final event of the camp's four-week long Color War, during which campers sing Alma Mater and fight songs.[11]

20 network ID's for Nickelodeon have been produced here in 1988, along with "Toon Break", a series of shorts for Toon Disney.

Androscoggin also has an overnight and day-trip program, including trips to Mt. Washington, Mount Katahdin, the Allagash River, the Kennebec River, and Montreal.

The camp colors are black and orange.

Notable alumni

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References

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  1. ^ "Find a Camp: Camp Androscoggin". Archived from the original on 2007-08-10. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
  2. ^ Camp Androscoggin founding date; A Handbook of the best private schools of the United States and Canada (1915); Vol. 1 p. 234; retrieved 3 April 2011
  3. ^ "Seeds of Peace Camp". Archived from the original on 2007-10-22. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
  4. ^ Sara Rimer, "For 130 Arab and Israeli Teen-Agers, Maine Camp Is Where Peace Begins", The New York Times, September 3, 1995.
  5. ^ Gloria Negri, "Balkan youths embrace diversity Camp offers forum to explore fears about war, others", The Boston Globe, August 22, 1995.
  6. ^ a b Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life (Vintage Books, 2011), ISBN 978-0307946843, p. 16. ([Sondheim's mother] "chose Camp Adroscoggin, a famous all-boys' camp in Wayne, Maine, where campers lived in simple cabins in the pine woods beside a large lake. It was ... patronized by prominent German-Jewish families from the New York area ... .)" Excerpts available at Google Books.
  7. ^ a b Mary Billard, "The Executive Life; And No One Mentions The Many Mosquitoes", The New York Times, June 14, 1992.
  8. ^ a b c d Richard Johnson, "Eavesdropping: Starting Early", New York Post, reprinted in Deseret News, October 27, 1988, p. T3.
  9. ^ a b c Richard Asinof, "Winning and losing on the playing fields of Wayne, Maine", Convergence RI, February 26, 2018.
  10. ^ Maine Youth Camping Foundation: Camp Androscoggin
  11. ^ Camp Androscoggin song lists
  12. ^ Andersen, Christopher (2015-06-09). The Good Son: JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4767-7557-9.
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