Warner-Tully YMCA Camp has served campers for 55 summers, but as for the holiday season, it has only served one.

Vicksburg YMCA officials decided to expand its programming at Warner-Tully and hosted its first-ever Thanksgiving session from Friday to Wednesday.

“I’ve been involved with camp as a camper, counselor and now director, and one thing has stayed really consistent – everyone wants more camp,” said camp director Allison East. “I checked the school schedules of our main camper areas, and this was the best time.”

East said the session was more successful than she could have imagined.

“We had a good number of campers sign up, and we had such a great time,” she said. “With a smaller group we got to know each other better and got to hang out more as a whole camp, and it was really a uniquely amazing experience.”

Leader-in-training Sarah Prescott, 14, said she’s been going to Warner-Tully since she was 5, but she liked the change with the fall session.

“The reason why I liked Thanksgiving camp was because we did many interesting activities and it was more relaxed,” she said. “There were less campers than there are in the summer.”

Prescott, who turned 14 in October, got her chance to be a leader-in-training earlier than normal because of the fall camp session.

“I thought it would teach me how to be more responsible, and it did help me to be more responsible,” she said. “You have to really watch over the kids especially if you’re with the little ones. You have to pay attention and listen just like a counselor would.”

Camper Michael Fink, 11, said he’s also been going to the camp for as long as he’s been able to go, and Thanksgiving camp provided him with unique new opportunities.

“I liked all the nice, warm fires,” he said. “It was cool that we got to learn how to make fires because at summer camp we didn’t get to make fires ourselves. We got to learn new skills and do activities we wouldn’t have done during the summer sessions.”

Fink also enjoyed doing some of the regular activities such as ropes in a colder environment versus doing the course while sweating.

Ann Wallace DeRossette, 13, has been a camper for about five years total, and she said when she first found out there would be a Thanksgiving camp, she knew she had to go.

“I knew I had to go,” she said. “I enjoy going to Warner-Tully in the summer, and the fact that they were having it again sounded fun.”

DeRossette said her favorite thing about the session was seeing her friends from out of town.

“Normally I only get to see some of my friends from Baton Rouge and New Orleans during the summer,” she said. “Because of Thanksgiving camp, I didn’t have a whole year to see them again.”

Anna Kate Doiron, 17, recently moved back to Vicksburg and was a first-time counselor at Warner-Tully for Thanksgiving camp.

“For nine years our YMCAs (Greenville and Ocean Springs) would rent out Warner-Tully for a week and bring a group of kids from there,” she said. “We would kind of recreate what the YMCA here does with the summer camp.

Doiron’s father, Phillip Doiron, was previously the director of the camp, and as CEO of the Greenville and Ocean Springs YMCAs, he led the groups who rented out the camp for a week during the summer. Phillip Doiron was recently named executive director of the Vicksburg YMCA.

“It was more like a family. Everyone here knows each other because they come every summer,” she said. “I really liked getting to know everyone at camp. This week definitely made me want to come as much as possible this summer.”