By Abigail Fisher
I often refer to URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy as my third child. Like my two human children, it has been my honor and delight to watch Sci-Tech grow from idea to infancy and onto maturity.
My first notion of Sci-Tech was following Summer 2012 after the URJ had applied to the Foundation for Jewish Camp for the grant that started it all. I was sitting in the outdoor sanctuary at Eisner when they announced that they had applied for a grant to create a Jewish science and technology camp.
“Oh wow! I have to work there,” I said out loud.
My Rabbi, sitting next to me, replied, “Yes, you do!”
The following winter, a large group of Jewish science folks got together in New York to brainstorm what this thing might look like; I was there with several others, and that included Rabbi Dan Medwin, now one of Sci-Tech’s directors. Two months later, they asked me to chair what became the Sci-Tech Council – a group of volunteers dedicated to promoting and helping camp in any way we can.
I well remember Opening Day of 2014, our first summer. I was so overcome with how this idea became a reality that I was unable to speak after the opening ceremony. I remember hearing two campers tell their counselor they were going outside to “discuss the quadratic formula.” At what other camp does that happen?
Now, we are finishing our ninth summer. A lot has changed – we have grown; we survived a virtual year; I’m not council chair any more (still a member though), and this year, at long last, I spent a week at camp as faculty.
Traditions have been created and changed and created again. Some things have not changed – I still wish Sci-Tech had been around when I was a kid. This is still a place where everyone is included and can be who they are, and I still get verklempt now and then when I think of how awesome this place is. And we’ve figured out that the quadratic formula song takes about 20 seconds to sing (thank you, COVID).
I look back on that day long ago when I first heard about the concept of Sci-Tech. I knew then that I needed to be a part of it; now it is a part of me.