A Day in the Life
overnight camp counselor
On a typical day, you’ll wake up with your co-counselor and campers, and help everyone get ready for the day and up the hill in time for 8:30 breakfast. We kick off the day after a nourishing meal at the Gathering with songs, stretches, Kudos, jokes and more. Scatters is the free choice activity period for campers, followed by Group Choice. As a counselor, you either lead or support campers in activities like boating, fishing, tree climbing, gardening, farm animal visits, archery, soccer, camoflage games, wild edible hikes and more. After lunch, you have an hour of Siesta to recharge with campers before afternoon activities.
In the afternoon, counselors support campers as they move between the pool, the Makerspace and the Zone. Your role is flexible in this time, depending on the movement of the campers. You could start out helping to create a birdhouse out of cardboard in the Makerspace, then head to the Zone to assist campers as they sort out a conflict while building forts in the woods, and finish as an aquatic observer at the pool. Before dinner, cabins do their cabin chores, and get dressed and ready for the All Camp Event.
After dinner, the All Camp Event brings everyone to either a game of Capture the Flag, an Open Mic, a Water Carnival, a Farm Party, a Costume Party & Dance, or a Global Celebration of Cultures. We close each evening with a campfire, a snack and head to our cabins.
You will help your campers get ready for bed, this will vary depending on their age. Sleep is always deep in the woods after our busy days. Then we wake up, and do it all again!
*During camp, counselors get a two-hour break each day Monday through Thursday, which are the four days in the week that we wake and sleep caring for campers.
DAY CAMP COUNSELOR
On a typical day, you’ll wake up in Focus Hall, get yourself ready, grab some breakfast and a quick meeting with your co-counselors, then head down to the Day Camp Hub in time to welcome the campers as they arrive. You play games and plan your day until your group has all checked in, then head off to play in the woods until morning snack. We kick off the day altogether at the Gathering with songs, stretches, Kudos, jokes and more.
You and your co-counselor lead 14 campers for a day of adventure, choice-making, and play. Your campers will be ages 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 10-11, or 11-12. Before lunch there is Group Choice time to be spent out on the trails, in the hammocks, creating at the Makerspace or playing in the Zone. Your next stop on this daily journey is lunch at the Dining Hall, or if it’s your lucky day, cooking over a campfire.
After lunch, counselors support campers as they move between the pool and the Zone. Your role is flexible in this time, depending on the movement of the campers. You might start out getting everyone covered in sunblock at the pool, heading over to the Zone to assist campers as they sort out a conflict while building forts in the woods, and finish as an aquatic observer at the pool. Next up… Scatters is the free choice activity period for campers. As a counselor, you lead/support campers in activities like boating, fishing, tree climbing, gardening, farm animal visits, archery, soccer, camoflage games, wild edible hikes and more.
With your troop of campers, you head to the Day Camp Hub for snack, games, closure and check out. The bus takes a load of children home, and by 5pm their grown-ups take them home for the day. After a quick meeting, day camp staff head up the hill for a short break before dinner. After dinner, evening jobs are divided up: kitchen, bathhouse cleaning, trail work, program preparation or overnight program assistance. Jobs finish by 8:30 when staff can relax at camp until the next morning!
kitchen team member
What does a basic kitchen shift look like?
A shift in the kitchen is typically a busy time. Many things are happening all at once as we all work together to serve our campers and staff healthy and filling meals. Our goal is to make many foods from scratch and serve all of our campers dietary needs and allergies as similar of meals as possible.
Days in the kitchen are typically split into 2 shifts.
The morning shift that focuses on Breakfast for overnight camp, morning snack for day camp and lunches for both day camp and overnight camp.
The afternoon shift focuses on afternoon snack for day camp, dinner for overnight camp and evening snack for overnight camp in addition to preparing foods for the next few days.
Tasks are organized amongst the staff on shift in a way to ensure that whatever needs to get done can get done. Normal tasks asked of team members include both food and cleaning tasks.
Food related tasks can include: making drinks, including coffee, juice, fruit infused waters, lemonade from scratch, and teas. Preparing all cold bar items, including washing fruits and veggies and preparing them for service on the cold bar such as cutting up watermelon, peeling and cutting carrot sticks, slicing cucumbers and cutting sweet peppers and tomatoes. Any necessary knife skills can be taught, but general knife safety and comfort of use is encouraged.
A team member may be asked to help prepare parts of the hot foods portion as well. This could be chopping vegetables, prepping foods for cooking like seasoning roasted vegetables or making pizza. In the kitchen we also make all of our desserts from scratch so a team member may be asked to make cookies, brownies or rice crispy treats as needed.
Cleaning tasks are just as important to the operations of the kitchen as food related tasks. We clean the kitchen after each shift, as well as the eating areas and the bathrooms in the Kitchen and Dining Hall. We also may help with the other bathrooms and buildings on camp as needed to prepare our camp for campers. The biggest cleaning task in the kitchen is located in Dishland. Feeding many people good food means that we can end up with a lot of dirty dishes. The kitchen staff members take turns doing dishes and putting them away throughout the shift.
Shifts in the kitchen are scheduled to be about 8 hours, with 2 short or 1 long break during the shift.