Scout’s dream comes true

Kyla Burke
Posted 8/27/15

The distant sound of cheers and chants echo throughout the fields of Camp Yawgoog, the second oldest Boy Scout Camp in the United States, located in Rockville, Rhode Island, as Assistant Reservation …

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Scout’s dream comes true

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The distant sound of cheers and chants echo throughout the fields of Camp Yawgoog, the second oldest Boy Scout Camp in the United States, located in Rockville, Rhode Island, as Assistant Reservation Director and Warwick native Dan Friel gets ready to start his day. Dressed in a scout uniform and armed with a walkie-talkie, the 27-year-old camp veteran is ready to make rounds around Yawgoog, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary year.

The nationally renowned camp is spread over 1,800 acres of woods that surround a large freshwater pond. The camp resembles a small pastoral town and includes several dining halls, handicap accessible sites, a museum, two places of worship, medical staff, administrative facilities and its own water filtration facility. Split into three camps, Three Point, Medicine Bow and Sandy Beach, Camp Yawgoog welcomes about 6,000 Boy Scouts aged 10 to 17 and their troop leaders from across the Northeast for weeklong sessions throughout the eight-week summer season.

Yawgoog was also featured in the Wes Anderson film “Moonrise Kingdom” as the fictional camp Fort Lebanon, including many scouts as extras in the film.

Friel, who has been in scouting since 1998, attended Camp Three Point for the first time in 1999 with Troop 183 from Warwick. Friel became an Eagle Scout in 2006 after completing his Eagle Scout Project with Friends Way, a non-profit bereavement center in Conimicut for children and families who have lost loved ones. Friel took part in developing, cleaning and painting the building that would house Friends Way.

Friel hasn’t attended college but held several jobs as a waiter, full-time cook and bartender in 2009, when he found himself wanting to do something more gratifying.

“I was raised in a home with good faith and good morals, but camp was where I put it into action. Everything I learned I learned at Yawgoog,” said Friel.

Friel turned to his camp roots for direction. He became the program leader for Camp Three Point for two years before moving to New York to be a camp director at another camp. Friel was also hired by the National Camping School to train Scout’s administrators in camp administration. This past November he was called to return to Yawgoog, as Assistant Resident Director where he serves as a liaison between the reservation director and camp directors. Friel also runs Scout Troop 63 out of St. Kevin Church in Warwick.

As Friel weaves through the trails past the rope course, hand-painted signs, tents and log cabins, many scouts run up to show him the leather belt they made at Camp Craft or to tell him a fact about Dr.Pepper soda. Friel greets almost all of the boys by name, asking how their day is going, how their mom is, if they’ll visit the shooting range later that day.

“I don’t have children, but I treat scouts as if they were my own,” said Friel.

Yawgoog has staff from all over the U.S. even the Dominican Republic. About 85 percent of camp staff attended Yawgoog as scouts. Andy Stone, former scout and current Sandy Beach camp director, believes a love of camp is what keeps former scouts coming back to work at Yawgoog.

“Camp is a very special place for young boys because, increasingly, opportunities like this don’t really exist anymore. I got to come out here when I was younger and live how kids lived 100 years ago, and that’s an experience that’s very hard to explain,” said Stone.

“In order to keep the camp running we need good developed staff who love their jobs just as much as scouts love camp,” said Friel. “I’m always telling the other staff members, ‘Find a way to say yes,’ because to that kid it could be the world, and we want to give him that opportunity,” said Friel.

Friel believes the sense of independence that comes with each camp experience is vital.

“Kids manage themselves with the buddy system. They choose their own activities to earn merit badges, and are responsible to get themselves to what they want to do,” said Friel.

While Camp Yawgoog has evolved since its first season in 1916, the camp still manages to keep boys enthused about maintaining the tradition and roots of what Boy Scouts is all about. Scouts are able to earn badges in wilderness survival, proper fire building, CPR, archery, the shooting range if they’re 15 and up, and now even a robotics merit badge, including building a robot that can solve a Rubik’s cube.

“The target of scouting is boys leading boys under the guidance of adults, and that’s what we teach and maintain in every single thing we do at camp. We try to develop youth to become leaders and role models at camp and within the community,” said Friel.

Troops are encouraged to take on service projects throughout the week to give back to camp, such as cleaning up one of the three amphitheaters around the camp.

Friel recalls when he attended camp at age 10, seeing Reservation Director Tom Sisson and thinking, “I want to be that.”

“Flash forward and I’m 27 without a college degree, I’m assistant director of the number one Boy Scout Camp in the country, working side by side with my childhood hero, and it’s all just beyond my wildest dreams,” said Friel.

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  • tellitlikeitis

    Seems pretty smug to me. Never mind an article in the Beacon, Dan Friel needs a statue!

    Saturday, August 29, 2015 Report this