It’s fair to say that Camp shapes us in ways that we don’t always realize. Those feelings that we experience as both campers and beyond are ones that we chase into adulthood in hopes that we might bring them forth into the world and find moments outside its gates to recapture some of the magic that makes Dudley so special.

In June of 2024, I started making book-related content on social media simply as a creative outlet — a way to engage more deeply with something I loved and, hopefully, to connect with a few like-minded people in the process. I had no expectation that it would grow into anything larger, let alone that it might help others rediscover a love of reading or rethink how they spend their personal time.

For about a year, it stayed small. The posts were mostly for me, as well as a modest circle of people in my life.

One day, quite off-handedly before I ran out for some Saturday errands, I recorded a video that opened with: “Five books for the fellas out there who want to read, but don’t know where to start.”

With that simple little hook, and the five books that followed, the page took on an entirely different life. On the day I posted that video, May 3rd 2025, I had 603 followers. Today, the page has over 120,000.

What has come from that post has been rewarding in ways I never could have imagined.

For nearly a decade, I didn’t read at all. While reading is almost universally understood as a healthy habit — one that reduces screen time, expands perspective, exercises the mind, and deepens our understanding of the world — I had completely lost touch with the reader I once was.

As a camper at Dudley I remember reading Harry Potter and Holes in my bunk. Years later, I read The Stand as a leader in Cornell Cabin in 2009, but shortly thereafter, I went nearly ten years without cracking open a single book.

When I eventually reconnected with reading, it had a profound effect on me — not just on what I read, but on how I chose to spend my time.

In the months following that post, messages started pouring in.

Men told me they’d wanted to get back into reading for years, and that this finally gave them a way in. One wrote that he hadn’t read a book in twelve years, but had already finished six since finding my page. A mother reached out to tell me her son, who never reads, had been sitting quietly in his room for an hour with a book I’d recommended, and that it felt like something in their household had shifted.

Unexpectedly, the page became a connector in another way, too. As someone who often wears a Dudley shirt, I began receiving messages from alumni and camp folks across the country — quick notes, shared memories, a “Yoha,” or simply, “Is that a Camp Dudley shirt?!”

My time as a leader at Dudley mattered in ways that are hard to put into words. Outside of camp, I wasn’t always living up to my potential, but for five summers I returned to Dudley and did something good. I showed up. I had a positive impact on the boys I was lucky enough to spend that time with. Those summers gave me a sense of purpose and filled me with memories and experiences that shaped who I am to this day.

In the years after leaving camp, I found my footing, but the desire to bring some good into the world never really leaves you. For me, that feeling has always been tied to camp. How do you get that back? How do you connect with people and offer something meaningful that goes beyond a job well done or a friendship maintained? Through this page, I’ve found an answer to that question, and I’m deeply grateful for it.

I’m now in conversations with local organizations about using this platform to help fund literacy programs in upstate New York. The hope is to extend the good that can be done through this work, and there’s no question that this desire, and these efforts, are rooted in my time at Camp Dudley and in the belief that its mission doesn’t end at the gates.

In the end, this work is just another way of carrying Camp with me and extending its mission to the world beyond in some small way.