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Tuftonboro, New Hampshire
Established: 1903
Camp
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Originating in the late 1800s, summer camp is one of America's
enduring gifts to the world and an ongoing boon to the thousands
of boys and girls who attend camps in the United States each
year. Though not the oldest camp in the land, YMCA Camp Belknap
in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, now joins a small, elite group
whose legacy spans one hundred years or more.
Established in 1903, back in the days of ice houses and horse-drawn
carriages, Camp Belknap today flourishes on the shore of New
Hampshire's majestic Lake Winnipesaukee, not only because the
concept of summer camp remains evergreen, but because its founders
and succeeding generations of directors and leaders have created
and continually improved on something special – a felicitous
blend of place, tradition, and purpose. The aim, from early
on, was to make good boys better. Camp Belknap has done that
exceptionally well.
Camp Belknap prides itself on its home-grown leadership program
and its motto of "God first, the other fellow second,
and myself last."