Summer Staff Camp Life

When I image working at camp. I still see a line of cabins with a wood walls and a front porch, an outbath close by. A historic dining hall and chapel. Everything is open air. I see summer staff who come in and know everything. They are going to change the world, and they do so that summer in the lives of their campers. These people are super heroes. They are pretty, can lifeguard, they know how to belay, they are stellar at teaching archery, make any field game amazing, and are always willing to put their arm around you in chapel.

This isn't at all how life at my camp works. We have modern buildings. They are more dorm style, each building doesn't match the next. Some are even motel style. There isn't one camp going on, instead tons and tons of little camps going on at once. Some lasting only 1 night, some up to 6. All groups with different ages, different dynamics, different focuses at this one place for their camp.

The summer staff where I work is different than the summer staff I remember. They have a whole different experience. Most are working in the kitchen or cleaning and running activities. They will not go home with memories of being a counselor, they will not have the friendship bracelets on their wrists.

They will walk away from the summer with fun memories, but the type of fun is oh so very different. You don't spend all day, every day with kids. But instead, you are with your co-workers. Your memories will be made vacuuming the dining hall, cutting carrots, lifeguarding, cleaning 10 buildings in a 5-hour span. You won't be mandated to sit with your cabin of kids in chapel each day for your spiritual growth but instead, challenge yourself to be in God's word on your own and grow in Him on your own. 

I don't think there is anything wrong with how we do camp. In some ways, I think it is even better than the traditional model. But from a staffing perspective, I think people may come in with the wrong expectations. I love the traditional model. I think it is good for campers and people to have that experience as well as the one that we have at the camp I work at, just seeing my side makes me miss the other. I miss the smell that those old cabins have, I miss the questionable water. I miss seeing the lake and the chapel sessions with kids.