Welcome To Teen Session!

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

Two Exciting Weeks: Sunday July 1 - Sunday July 15
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.  For five seasons now this new connection to Camp Haiastan for our teens is no longer a new adventure, it’s become an 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 to enter the Staff-In-Training program for 17 year olds in order to begin 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 who have completed 9th grade, and 15 and 16-year-old 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 plan and organize 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 water craft), the new Hye Hope Pavilion, 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 over past summers we have attracted Armenian teens from not only across the U.S. but also from Italy, France, Qatar, Armenia, Belgium, Spain, England, Syria, Brazil and Canada according to Executive Director Roy Callan, who says:

“These kids are in for a unique and challenging adventure. We utilizethe facilities of Camp Haiastan in new and different ways, as well as the fun of a few off site field trips and outings. Teen Session campers have experienced a canoe trip on the Charles River, a bike & camp trip on Cape Cod, a visit to historic “Battleship Cove” that featured camping on the venerable U.S.S. Massachusetts, 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 workshopwith genocide education experts at the Armenian Library & Museum of America, Watertown and a hike to the summit of famous Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire, the most hiked mountain in the world after Mt. Fuji, Japan.   Everything we do is flavored by the unique bond of being Armenian and sharing in culture-connecting activities.   The Teen Session is quite different than what campers have experienced 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 completes each day for.   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!”

Teen Session Photos

1st Zartonk Teen Session

Camp Trip

Camp Trip Dinner

Canoe Trip

Canoe Trip