Mia
Natalizio

Position: Music Counselor

Cody has become my second home and I couldn’t imagine my summer without it. The people here are always so friendly and welcoming and I enjoy seeing my friends from the years before, make new friends and learning more from my fellow counselors and campers. Now being able to teach music, which is what I’m most passionate about, to a group of young minds is really inspiring.

At camp there was a time when I wanted to come to camp for the second year and it was arrival day for me and my two brothers. My older brother has been here for 6 years, and it was my younger brother’s first year. We arrived and all I wanted was to go to music class. The counselor came over and met my entire family and gave me a hug. The friendliness was outstanding and left a smile on my face for the whole summer. During my music classes, I learned how to play ukulele and volunteered to help with the play. Working with the younger kids on something I love to do is a huge reason why I keep coming back to teach what I love.

During second session, I had a group of senior girls who wanted to do both ukulele and sing, so we came up with an idea called a mash up. We played certain chords on the ukulele and then sang mash ups of their favorite songs that worked with those chords. They taught me the idea and we ended up on Phil’s daily video blog. It was a moment of being taught by your kids and having the bonding moment shared amongst all of us. I still use that activity as a lesson and it is great seeing the joy of the kids when singing some of their favorite songs.

A life lesson that I learned at Cody was to not judge someone based on rumors or looks. When deciding on who was going to be my first co-counselor, I was worried that I wouldn’t get along with some of them. My 4 co-counselor’s have become some of my closest friends at Cody and possibly in my life. Everyone has their own story and each story is unique and makes a person who they are, and that is truly amazing.