WINS Worth Remembering
Play Loud. Tune Into What Matters.
This summer at MAC Camp, we played LOUD. We traveled, explored, built forts, went swimming, made new friends, faced fears, walked tightropes, took leaps, and watched campers accomplish things they weren’t always sure they could do. But some of our biggest WINS happened in the quieter moments, when we slowed down enough to tune into ourselves and one another.
Our theme, Play Loud. Tune Into What Matters., became about much more than having an unforgettable summer. We explored what lives beneath the surface: our feelings, our behaviors, and the things we communicate without ever saying a word. Campers practiced recognizing their own emotions and noticing the cues of our non-speaking friends. We also explored Deaf culture and learned some sign language to better communicate and connect with Deaf and hard-of-hearing campers.
Our summer brought together returning campers and brand-new faces, familiar staff and new team members, and some of our older campers stepping into junior leadership roles. Our weeks were packed with field trips and adventures, photo scavenger hunts, swimming, rainy-day forts, and plenty of opportunities to try something new.
Through our SPOT curriculum, we learned that feelings can show up in our bodies and behaviors in all kinds of ways. At an inclusive camp like ours, understanding that is especially important. MAC Camp brings together neurotypical and neurodivergent children, children with disabilities, speaking and non-speaking campers, and Deaf and hard-of-hearing campers.
Inclusion isn’t simply being in the same space. It’s learning how to understand one another within that space.
Sometimes that meant noticing body language, facial expressions, behaviors, or other cues from a non-speaking friend. Sometimes it meant learning a new sign. Sometimes it meant realizing that what we see on the surface may have fear, frustration, excitement, overwhelm, or something entirely different underneath it.
And sometimes growth looked like a camper getting into the water for the first time, walking across a tightrope despite being scared, taking the leap from a hang glider, making a new friend, or one of our older campers discovering they could step up and lead.
We’ll remember all the wonderfully loud parts of MAC Camp 2026, but some of the WINS we’re proudest of were quieter: courage, understanding, communication, empathy, independence, friendship, and belonging.
We played loud.
And together, we learned to tune into what matters.