Sea Girt’s Adventure Camp

For the past three summers, Sea Girt Recreation’s Adventure Camp has been getting local kids outside, into the woods, onto the water, and along the ocean. These camp members take advantage of the remarkable natural resources that exist right here in our own community. 

The program was born from a simple idea. “Our kids should have the opportunity to experience the outdoors that surrounds them. In an increasingly plugged-in world, Adventure Camp offers something refreshingly different,” Coach Mark Leddy says. “Two hours spent learning, exploring, and getting a little dirty while discovering the wildlife, waterways, and shoreline that make Sea Girt such a special place.” 

Learning From Others

An important element of the program is that the kids are learning from other kids. Much like Sea Girt Recreation’s volleyball program, which utilizes standout local high school students, college and club players as coaches, Adventure Camp was designed to give young people the opportunity to learn from older students who are already actively participating in the activities they love. That philosophy led Sea Girt Recreation to reach out to the leadership at Manasquan High School in search of potential Adventure Camp coaches. 

The school introduced the program to four freshmen who were members of the newly formed MHS Fishing Club. The four young men were already involved in sports and academic programs and, despite their busy schedules, enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to spend their summer afternoons working with younger children. They were also exactly what the program needed. They are young, enthusiastic outdoorsmen who could share their knowledge while encouraging younger kids to discover the same enjoyment they had found outside. 

The other Adventure Camp coaches are standout students, members of the National Honor Society and members of MHS football, basketball, baseball, and golf teams. They are accomplished athletes and enthusiastic fishermen, surfers, boaters, and outdoorsmen. They don’t pretend to know everything. Instead, they are willing to say they don’t have all the answers while eagerly sharing what they do know, and what they genuinely love about being outdoors. 

Community Becomes the Classroom 

Working with the new teen coaches, Sea Girt Recreation identified existing outdoor programs, including “Hooked on Fishing” and marine science, and began developing a customized, hands-on Adventure Camp experience specifically for local children. Sea Girt offers a perfect setting for an outdoor adventure program, with woods, ponds, and the ocean all within minutes of one another. The camp utilizes Edgemere Park for its woodland activities, Wreck Pond for water exploration, and Beacon Beach for ocean-based instruction. 

At the beach, campers learn the fundamentals of fishing, including how to cast, tie knots, determine where and what to cast for, and select the appropriate bait for different species of fish. What might seem like simple skills to an experienced angler becomes exciting discoveries for a child holding a fishing rod for the first time. 

At Wreck Pond, the focus shifts to crabbing, seining, and species identification. Kids have the opportunity to get hands-on with the environment and learn about the creatures living right in their own backyard. 

With trail cameras and binoculars, campers get a glimpse into the wildlife that inhabits the forests and shorelines around them. Trapping experts and naturalists have joined the program to teach the children about the animals that call the area home, including eagles, ospreys, deer, foxes, coyotes, otters, and raccoons. 

As more children and parents express interest in Adventure Camp, Sea Girt Recreation is exploring how the program can safely and effectively accommodate more participants. And with demand comes the challenge of finding the next generation of coaches. The hope is to introduce more young men and women to the opportunity and identify the next group of local high school students who can step into leadership roles and share their own outdoor passions with younger children. 

For those behind the program, the idea of young people teaching young people is nothing new. “I’ve been involved in coaching since childhood in Spring Lake,” says Leddy. “Back then, if you made a high school varsity sport, you were expected to coach a Little League or soccer team for free!” But after years of coaching, he says, this particular group stands out. “This group of Adventure Camp coaches is by far the most exceptional.” 

At a time when children are spending more and more of their lives connected to screens, Adventure Camp provides a reason to put the phone down and step outside. It gives them the chance to explore the places they may pass every day without really seeing. They can learn from someone only a few years older than them and discover that the outdoors can be every bit as exciting as anything found on a screen. That is what Sea Girt’s Adventure Camp is really about: to get outside, look around, learn something, and pass it on.