For the last 25 years or so, if you visited Camp Hope, you almost certainly were greeted by Jesus. After attending as a camper during his childhood, Jesus joined the camp’s staff when he got older, and has been greeting campers, families, and visitors in the decades since.

“I’ve been here a long time,” he says. He loves opening the gates for people and helping clean up around the grounds, and he especially loves the camp team. His favorite day at camp is when they have the annual car wash.

The Arc of Essex County has been in Jesus’s family for years. His mother worked in the accounting department and both of his sisters were also camp counselors when they were in their teens and early 20s.

When Jesus recalls his younger days as a camper, he remembers that he “swam all day. I loved it.”

Now he spends his summers helping to make the camp experience as joyful as it can be for the children and adults who attend each summer.