Erin and Garrett Graham with their son, Henry. Photo by Joy Bryant
By Elizabeth L. Harrison
Summer camp is a passion for Garrett and Erin Graham, who took their wedding vows on the property of a camp where they served as directors for many years. Last October, they purchased Camp Glen Arden for Girls, a 67-year-old summer camp tucked among the evergreen and rhododendron in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Tuxedo.
Erin says Camp Glen Arden “just felt right” before she even stepped onto the property, during a meeting with former camp owners. “I could just tell they were such good people,” she says, “and they had a program where campers and parents loved and respected them so much.”
Each summer, Glen Arden is home to roughly 125 campers per three- or four-week session. It is the only girls’ camp in Western North Carolina listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Once located at Christ School in Arden, the camp was founded in 1951 by Mary Bell. The Bell family operated Glen Arden as a sister camp to Camp Arrowhead for Boys for 45 years. In 1996, the camp was purchased under the leadership of longtime director Carol “Casey” Thurman.
Camps in WNC served roughly 53,000 children in 2010, according to an economic impact study commissioned by the North Carolina Youth Camping Association and conducted by business professors at NC State University. The study found that summer camps in four WNC counties generated $365 million in local spending and $33 million in tax revenue in 2010.
The Grahams are no greenhorns to the camping industry. Garrett served as the director of another historic summer camp for girls beginning in 2000, and Erin joined him after they were married in 2004, leaving her career as a high school English teacher.
They believe it is more important than ever for girls to find their voice in the world, and camp is the perfect place for that to happen. Today, Garrett says, spaces for kids to experience free play, where they can grow and learn from their mistakes, just don’t exist anymore—except at camp.
“Being able to do what we love—it’s not something most people get to do,” he says. “We get to create experiences for young people that are real. They challenge themselves and achieve things they can’t anywhere else.”
Glen Arden offers activity choices that serve a range of interests. Campers choose to participate in archery, pottery, tennis, swimming, dance, horseback riding, hiking, rock climbing, weaving, coppersmithing, drama or canoeing. Opportunities to earn progressions in each activity give the campers incentive to master skills while gaining confidence, allowing each girl the chance to experience growth physically, mentally and spiritually in a safe, fun and nurturing environment.
“Building a legacy is important for us as a family,” says Erin. “Our camp family is a direct extension of our own family, and every relationship is equally important to us.”
To learn more about Camp Glen Arden for Girls, visit campglenarden.com or call 828.692.8362.
I attended this Camp for 2 years between 1952 and 1954.. I loved it..I remember being one of campers of the year and the reward was a trip to Pisgah Natl forest and the famous sliding rock where we pinned washcloths to the seats of our bathing suits and slid down..such great memories…also remember learning to waterski at a lake near camp.. those memories have been special to me all of these years..I am now almost 83 and still think so fondly of this special place! Marie Trapani…that was and is now the name I was registered as!
Wow…small world, Marie. I was at Glen Arden (at the ripe old age of 9) also in 1952. My name then was Jeanie Tredinick. My family registered me for one month & then drove up from FL to bring me back home after the month was over. I was having so much fun I begged to stay for the second month. So they conferred with Mary Bell, extended my stay, arranged me to return on the train in a month with the other FL campers, & left to drive back to FL. They had only been gone about a day or so when I had a meltdown from homesickness & begged them to come get me. Again! Sooo, they turned around & drove back to the camp but by the time they arrived, I was “fine” again. To this day, I don’t know why they didn’t throttle me & throw me in the trunk but my Dad somehow saw the humor in the whole fiasco & graciously left me at Glen Arden for the second month. My family is all gone now (Daddy, Mama, & my big brother Don) but at 81, I still remember that Glen Arden summer vividly as one of the high points in my long life. Indelible memories. I would have returned the following summer but by then my family had bought a farm & I now had Ranger, my very own ancient pinto horse who occupied my whole heart. But my fond Glen Arden memories are still intact.
I went to Camp Glen Arden in the sixties, and went for two months every summer for five years! I am now 64 and remember vividly the girls I got to know, the friendships made and how wonderful the camp experience was for all those years. I remember Mary Bell and how kind she was. I will always remember those years with much affection.
I went to Glen Arden in the sixties. First time was just 2 weeks; I was 10 years old. I loved it and went back for another 4 summers, for a month or two. At age 15, I was a CIT (counselor- in -training), and after a few years away, I came back as a counselor at age 19. At counselor training, Mary Bell, explained that the campers in our care was the most important and cherished gifts of their parents, and we needed to care for them as our gifts. One year, I went on the Prize Trip, where we camped in the woods and went to the Pisgah slide, a huge wet rock that we slid down, and landed in ice cold water. What a wonderful experience it was to be a Glen Arden camper.