Camp Ma-Ho-Ge

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Camp Ma-Ho-Ge, located in Bethel, New York in Sullivan County and about one mile from the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, was the summer home for hundreds of kids from the 1920's through 1977, when the camp was sold. Ma-Ho-Ge was the first camp on Silver Lake but was later joined by Camp Ranger, Camp Hillel and Camp Chipinaw. In the early 1970's, the camp had an influx of campers and key staff from Twin Lakes and Alamar. Most of the campers and staff hailed from New York City, Long Island, Westchester County, New York and New Jersey.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Camp Anawana in nearby Monticello and Camp Ma-Ho-Ge, enjoyed a great sports rivalry. Ma-Ho-Ge was regularly invited to the Anawana Invitational Tournament (AIT) in basketball and Anawana regularly participated in the Ma-Ho-Ge Invitational Tournament in softball. These hotly contested tournaments were in addition to Inter-camp games at least twice every summer with each camp visiting the other. In addition, many campers from both Anawana and Ma-Ho-Ge were courtside for many of the annual Maurice Stokes basketball game, played each summer at Kutsher's Sports Academy. The game was an off-season All-Star game, featuring the greatest NBA players of the time, including Wilt Chamberlain and Walt Frazier.

Milt Sirota, known as "Uncle Miltie" and a great athlete, was the Boys Head Counselor from 1957 through the camp's closing and was a father figure to so many kids. That role would later be shared with Ed Shumsky (1973 to 1977), a softball genius, who further boosted the camp's stellar sports reputation among the many sleepaway camps in the Catskills.

Ma-Ho-Geans in the later years probably had some of the best food in sleepaway camp history. That's because co-owner Burt Leventhal, who still owns and operates a well-respected catering company, could often be seen in the kitchen supervising how food was prepared and served.

Ma-Ho-Ge alum include Gary Winick, who directed Charlotte's Web (2006), and criminal defense attorney Bruce Cutler.

The daughter of baseball great and NY Mets manager Gil Hodges, as well as the son of jockey Norman Dauplaise, also attended Ma-Ho-Ge for a short time during the 1970's.