80 Years After: Pine Tree Camp through Gareth Robinson’s lens
Not only did Gareth grow up at camp, he never left. At 28 years old, he’s never missed a summer and, as the son of Pine Tree Camp Director, Dawn Willard-Robinson, for him, Pine Tree Camp is much more than a summer camp, it’s home.
He was in kindergarten when his mother became director and he grew up alongside many of the campers who still attend to this day. Over the years, he’s been a program assistant, worked with the facilities team, washed dishes in the kitchen and, ultimately, reached his goal of becoming a counselor.
“I always wanted to have more involvement with campers and, at age 17, I finally got to be a counselor. I loved that.”
During this time, he also discovered he had a knack for taking photos and shooting video. It had always been a hobby of his father’s and something they enjoyed doing together. When the opportunity arose to take photos for Pine Tree Camp one summer, he found himself more and more behind the lens, first as an intern then later as a full time Multimedia Producer, a job he still works in today.
He has no doubt that his life-long experiences at Pine Tree Camp have shaped his lens on the world.
“Growing up at Pine Tree Camp I had a wide range of experiences with a broad spectrum of people. The way we adapt activities has given me this dogged notion that pretty much anything can be accomplished if you come at it from the right angle.”
One of Gareth’s most vivid childhood memories is of feeling homesick when he went away to summer camp himself.
“My mom started her job as camp director when I was six years old,” he said. “I didn’t have a notion of what life was like without it.”
So, when he went away to a sleep-over camp on China Lake for the first time, he felt like a fish out of water.
“I began to appreciate Pine Tree Camp a lot more when I went away for a summer camp of my own at age 11,” he recalled. “I got super homesick and I remember thinking ‘oh boy, what have I gotten myself into.’ I wanted to go home but my mom knew the director and she said I should stay and that I could make it through.”
Looking back, he’s glad he did.
“I think that experience really set me up for success later on as a counselor because I had a sense of what kids and even some of the other counselors might be feeling.”
That experience also paved the way for the work he does now connecting with campers, Pine Tree Society clients and his co-workers to share the organization’s mission and stories.
“I think of my role as Multimedia Producer as showing the public what we do, who we serve and how we do it. We do so much cool stuff and I want people to know about it.”
