In just a few weeks, school will be out. Kids minds will be on swimming holes, baseball, bare feet and the trappings of summer...like summer camp.

Summer camp is an American tradition, and for the last 15 years, the YMCA's Camp Half Moon at the Allard center in Goffstown has been a destination for local kids.

What you might not know is that it takes a little prep work to get the grounds ready for the eager campers.

This is where the Radisson stepped in.

Wait. The hotel? Like, the former “Center of New Hampshire?” Yep. Exactly.

“We have a staff member who serves on the (YMCA) board,” Kim Roy, the general manager at the Radisson in Manchester told me, “she saw a need and volunteered us for the job.”

Normally, volunteering someone else doesn't work out so well, but this is the exception. See a need, fill a need.

A group of Radisson workers, ranging from management, account executives, and luckily a few of the cleaning staff, went to the camp and cleaned up last week, getting the outdoor campus ready in much the same fashion as most homeowners do yard work.

Raking, clearing debris (especially important after this past winter's early storm), the normally indoor crew, spent a 9 to 5 doing manual labor, and working in the great outdoors. Trading ties and pantsuits for jeans and T-shirts.

“It's really nice to get outside of the building together,” Roy said.

“Plus we had a beautiful day for it.”

That was no easy accomplishment, considering the wet work-weeks we've been having. Seriously, has anyone noticed that we've had four straight weeks of Monday-Friday rain, followed by beautiful weekends?

Not that I'm totally complaining, but I have had to bring out the mower four straight weekends.

Camp Half Moon is set to open June 3rd for its open house.

“We look for groups to open up our camp and to help close our camp,” Camp Director Katie Duffy said. Hint: they don't have anyone lined up for the fall clean-up after the camp closes August 30th. If your organization wants to lend a hand, I suggest you get in touch.

Since the camp opened in 1997, it has become a traditional feeder-program for itself, training current campers into future counselors, conditioning them with their counselor-in-training program for 14 and 15 year olds.

“It's not guaranteed employment,” Duffy said, “but we are just trying to foster leadership skills in our teens.”

And so it goes. It's great to see one Manchester area institution feed another, helping out where they can and looking to the future, especially when that future is our youth.

In a few weeks, that final bell will ring for classes, and the campers will trek out, into the great outdoors...with a little help from a downtown hotel.

Adam McCune is the author of “Funny Man Down.” McCune's Manchester appears Thursdays in the New Hampshire Union Leader. You can e-mail Adam at amccune@gmail.com.