Camp Fire, formerly Camp Fire USA, originally Camp Fire Girls of America, is a nationwide American youth organization that began in 1910. The organization has been co-ed since 1975 and welcomes youth from pre-kindergarten through age 21. Camp Fire was the first nonsectarian, multicultural organization for girls in America. Its programs emphasize camping and other outdoor activities for youth.
Its informal roots extend back to 1910, with efforts by Mrs. Charles Farnsworth in Thetford, Vermont and Luther Gulick M.D. and his wife Charlotte Vedder Gulick on Sebago Lake, near South Casco, Maine. Camp Fire Girls, as it was known at the time, was created as the sister organization to the Boy Scouts of America. The organization changed its name in 1975 to Camp Fire Boys and Girls when membership eligibility was expanded to include boys. In 2001, the current name, Camp Fire USA, was adopted.
Camp Fire's programs, including small group experiences, after-school programs, camping and environmental education, child care and service learning, build confidence in younger children and provide hands-on, youth driven leadership experiences for older youth.
Read more about Camp Fire: History, Programs, Native American Influence, Camp Fire Today, Camp Fire USA in Fiction, Notable People
Famous quotes containing the words camp and/or fire:
“Usually the scenery about them is drear and savage enough; and the logger’s camp is as completely in the woods as a fungus at the foot of a pine in a swamp; no outlook but to the sky overhead; no more clearing than is made by cutting down the trees of which it is built, and those which are necessary for fuel.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sky it seems would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)