Yom Sport

Each summer the whole camp comes together for a day called Yom Sport.  It's a day full of fun activities including traditional sports like basketball and softball, camp sports like Gaga and Greased Watermelon, and games like Torah trivia and Israel geography.  Every camper is assigned to one of four teams, represented by a color, and each team is made up of campers from every eidah.  It's a great chance for campers to meet people outside of their eidah and it's a time for the camp to really come together in the spirit of friendly competition.  Campers find as many articles of clothing in their color as they can, paint their faces, and make up cheers that can be heard throughout camp.

Yom Sport starts on Saturday night with the lighting of the torch and then continues all day Sunday.  In the morning, each team participates in a number of activities to earn points for their team.  All the while, eidah captains and the Nivonim "uber-captains" run around to the different activities to help build team spirit.  The radio station broadcasts songs to keep everyone in the mood, interviews campers and staff members about the various sports, and announces the scores. 

In the afternoon, the teams play games on the Kikar, such as tug-of-war and musical chairs.  Then Yom Sport culminates in the Apache, an hour-long relay race in which everyone participates, that takes campers all around camp and even across the lake to the island.  The Apache is full of fun activities like rolling down the Kikar, shaving balloons, setting up a tent, the human knot, and building sandcastles.  At the end of the Apache, one person from each team kayaks to the island, one person from each team swims back to camp from the island, and then campers from Nivonim build campfires on the beach as the rest of their team cheers them on from the lower Kikar. 

In the evening, the whole camp comes together again for a talent show, in which acts from every eidah perform.  Camp is always full of activity, but on Yom Sport there's a different kind of feeling, of everyone working together and having a great time.

Brandon L. (Solelim):  Today I played soccer and Frisbee.  My team is doing pretty well.  I'm the Solelim Blue Team captain, which means I get to help assign people to different activities.  Captains also have to have a lot of spirit.  I'm having a good time.  I really like the spirit of the day.

Matthew K. (Solelim):  What I like about Yom Sport is that all the eidot are coming together and playing together in friendly competition.  We get to be with people who aren't in our cabins or our eidah and we get to play a lot of fun sports that we don't usually play.  My favorite sport has been Gaga, and I really like the Apache too.

Jonathan W. (Shoafim):  I like Yom Sport because it's different from all the other days.  Everyone has such strong emotions in them and has a great time.  I really like playing water basketball.  It was a lot of fun.

Natalie C. (Solelim):  My favorite part of Yom Sport is the competition and my favorite sport was football.  It was a lot of fun.

Hannah (Solelim):  I like a lot of things about Yom Sport.  I like how we all come together and we're not just eidot competing against each other.  It seems like we're all coming together as a camp.  I really liked playing trivia this morning.

Ethan F. (Garinim):  Yom Sport is really fun.  You pretty much play sports and represent a color all day.  My favorite activity was playing Frisbee.  It was a lot of fun.

Raoul H. (Solelim):  I like the team unity of Yom Sport.  My favorite activity was Frisbee.

Aaron M. (Machon):  I like being able to compete within our eidah and with the other eidot.  My favorite activity has been Gaga.

Daniel M. (Tikvah):  I really like playing sports on Yom Sport.  My favorite activity today was dodgeball.

Allison S. (Shoafim):  I like being with a lot of different people that you don't usually get to hang out with.  My favorite sport was Gaga.

Melissa L. (Garinim):  My favorite thing about Yom Sport is the swimming.

Elise H. (Shoafim):  What I like about Yom Sport is that it's a chance for everyone in camp to get together and bond.  We're competing, but it's still more of a bonding thing, so it's really cool.  We all get excited for whoever wins.  It's just really exciting.  I really liked getting to play soccer because I love soccer and we got to play a bunch of different teams.

Cara S. (Shoafim):  I really like dressing up with all of my friends and just having fun and having a lot of team spirit.  I really liked playing Gaga.

Jacob M. (Bogrim):  What I like about Yom Sport is that even though we're all competing against each other, at the end of the day, when the talent show comes, everyone is together as a whole camp.  My favorite activity today was floor hockey.