Welcome To Teen Session!

Teen Campers and Staff

“Zartonk” Teen Session Exclusively For 14 year olds who have completed 9th grade and 15 & 16 Year Olds

Two Exciting Weeks: Sunday June 27 - Sunday July 11
What is Zartonk you ask? In 2005 the first Teen Session campers were given the challenge of giving their new session an Armenian name that would be identified with the Teen Session from that time on. These first Teen Session campers aptly chose the name “Zartonk”, which means awakening or rebirth. Until the Zartonk Session started in 2005, campers ended their camping careers at Camp Haiastan at the age of 14. Now this newfound connection (or rebirth) for teens and Camp Haiastan through their 16th year is no longer a new adventure, it’s now become a newly established tradition.

The Zartonk Session has met with so much enthusiasm that attendance has increased substantially every season since 2005. The 2008 season was a record setter with 60 campers! Many Zartonk Teens go on after they turn 16 to enter the Staff-In-Training program for 17 year olds in order to begin the process of training to become full camp staff when they become 18. Camp Haiastan campers can take full advantage of the wonderful relationship building experiences that can now be offered campers starting from 5 years of age in Day Camp through 16 years of age in Teen Session, and on into their adult years as SIT’s and full camp staff members. The true spirit of what the Zartonk Teen Session has come to mean to our camp in such a short period of time is embodied in the thoughts of two original Zartonk Teen Session campers Michelle Hagopian of Granite City, IL and Adreena Nersesian of Hanover, MI. (click here to read more)

Zartonk Teen Session is an action packed session especially designed for 14 year olds entering 10th grade in the fall, and 15 and 16-year-old Armenian teens (14 year olds who have not completed 9th grade, and 17 year olds are not accepted to Teen Session). The talented Camp Haiastan staff along with Teen Session campers eagerly plans and organizes new and unique activities each season targeted for teen-age campers that complement the traditional Camp Haiastan activities that kids have enjoyed for decades. New facility improvements to the ROPES Challenge Course, and the Uncas Pond Waterfront (new kayaks and Sunfish sailboats), the new Hye Hope Pavilion, along with Internet computers, exciting field trips, challenging sports tournaments, special events like Camp Olympics and a unique and stimulating Armenian cultural program await Zartonk campers.

We are proud to announce that in the past three summers of Zartonk Teen Session we have attracted Armenian teens from not only across the U.S. but also Italy, France, Qatar, Armenia, Belgium, Spain, England, Aleppo, Brazil and Canada according to Executive Director Roy Callan, who says:

“These kids are in for a unique and challenging adventure. We will be utilizing the facilities of Camp Haiastan in new and different ways, as well as the fun of a few planned off site field trips and outings. Teens have experienced a day canoe trip on the Charles River, overnight bike & camp trip on Cape Cod, a visit to historic “Battleship Cove” featuring a stay-over on the venerable U.S.S. Massachusetts Click Here to Read More, an “Armenian” tour of Providence, RI highlighted by our own private viewing of artifacts of world renowned Armenian artists at Berj Zobian’s Gallery Z, a workshops with genocide education experts at the Armenian Library & Museum of America to name a few. Everything we do is flavored by the unique bond of being Armenian and sharing in many culture-connecting activities planned during the two weeks. The Teen Session will be quite different than what campers have been used to in the 8 – 14 year old sessions, kids will be on the move, up early and out late every day as an exciting social event closes each day for “Zartonk” teen campers. Teen campers come away from Zartonk with a feeling of personal and collective accomplishment through meeting head-on the many challenges that the session presents, as well as a strong feeling for their “Armenianism” through living, learning, working, sharing and playing with an elite group of Armenian teens from around the U.S. and quite possibly the world! “Zartonk” will surely awaken your body, mind and spirit!”