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Like many other summer camps, Camp Haiastan, located off of Summer Street on Uncas Pond, has gone through some tough periods of adaptation but now, according to the camp’s new executive director Kenar Charchaflian, things are roaring back to near normal.
“I was hired last year but we couldn’t open, so this year is my first rodeo,” said Charchaflian, a Worcester resident and 2014 graduate of University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She said the camp’s first session, which ends shortly, was operating at capacity and the next session is similar, with some 330 campers arriving from across the US and even from internationally.
Established back in 1951 by the Armenian Youth Federation, which itself dates to the early 1930s when survivors of the 1915 Ottoman Empire genocide were settling into new lives in America, it is the oldest such facility in the US and is dear to the hearts of many Armenian-Americans and to Franklins's Armenian community, in particular. So much so that Ara Dinkjian, described as a “composer, musician, and camp dad” recently self-published a 40-sheet Camp Haiastan coloring book aimed at both nostalgic former campers and potential future campers.
Last year, with Covid forcing a suspension of operations, a group of more than 20 volunteers from the Providence Armenian community organized a July 2020 cleanup weekend which included clearing brush, ridding the barbecue area of trash, and cleaning out an abandoned building near the upper office, according to a web site report.
Charchaflian has been a member of the Central Executive of the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) for five years.
In 2018 she served as summer director of Camp Javakhk, located in the Republic of Georgia, serving Armenian children from that region.
According to the web site, Camp Haiastan is designed to provide a summer experience to Armenian-American youth, and to help them foster their Armenian identity and establish lifelong friendships. “It is a beautiful place where everyone comes together,” said Charchaflian.
