Girls Inc. Camp: Where Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

6/22/2009

Shattering the calm in a spacious Victorian mansion Monday afternoon, 20 girls led by camp counselors came marching down the hall, yelling, "I said a boom chicka boom!"

While the old home of Sen. Orville H. Platt - best known for the 1901 Platt amendment, which established the right of the United States to control the foreign policy of Cuba and intervene in its affairs - seemed an odd place for summer camp songs, the girls don't seem to mind at all.

Platt died in 1905, and his descendants willed the house and surrounding grounds at 130 Lincoln St. to Girls Inc. of Meriden, said Executive Director Michelle Bourdeau.

As part of the Strong, Smart and Bold summer camp, girls 4 to 15 years old ran around the grounds Monday, swimming, playing games and doing crafts.

Being part of an all-girls camp gives a girl the chance to escape expectations of how she should act, Bourdeau said.