Camp is buzzing – literally! Right now I can hear drills and saws from my office, and that can only mean one thing…camp is right around the corner! 

Each year I get asked what we do when it’s not summer, and the answer is easy. Everything we do between September and May revolves around three things: people, property, and program. Those are the components of a great camp.

People:

We spend the majority of our time on people. Right now, this looks like staff hiring! It takes a lot of staff to run a camp. Just in a day your camper will interact with their counselors who live their cabin, counselors in training who shadow in activities and cabins, nurses who administer everything from daily medicine and bandaids to a hug, hostesses who answer the phone, program staff who plan our evening activities and manage cabins, barn staff who keep our horses and teach riding lessons, expedition staff who take our out-of-camp trips, maintenance staff who keep camp and cabins clean and safe, and kitchen staff who prepare their meals. That’s a lot of people!

And it’s not just a headcount. Yes, there’s a number of people that we need, but we use thorough interviews to screen for character, faith, skill, and many other things. We could run a great camp anywhere with the right people.

Property:

88,000 meals, 130 acres, 93 toilets, showers & sinks, 25 cabins, 16 horses…our property requires a whole team! Camp is all about tradition, so we want camp to feel the same year after year while still getting better. That’s why this year we’ve made a few exciting updates.

  • There’s a new deck on Senior Hill! This space will see growth in friendships and in skills with some picnic tables for girls to spend time laughing with their friends, and space for it to function as a new drama stage!
  • The Big House is about 130 years old – and a few parts of it were starting to look that way! It got an upgrade that you’ll see on opening day as you drive through the front gates. 

Program: 

We have excellent people and a beautiful property, but the thing that makes camp camp is our programming. Our daily activities, cabin culture, evening activities, songs, and silliness are what create traditions. Some of these things need to stay the same (we have sung the same songs for 79 years) and some need to keep growing every year (adding PAWs as a daily activity was a huge hit!). Each of these decisions are carefully weighed to answer the question: does this make us better at our mission? Will we do a better job helping campers experience growth through friends and adventure because of this change? This year we have some particularly exciting program changes:

  • We have a new Sunnyside cabin! What used to be Rainbow and Dreams Begin will now be Sunnyside and Sundrop. This means that all of our oldest girls will be under the same roof. We are so excited for this change, and know that our Sunnysiders will be too!
  • You might have noticed two new daily activities on the selection form this year! If you are rising 4th grade or younger you can flex your creative and engineering skills in Lego Builders. If you are a rising 9th grader or older you can sign up for Trips: Hiking. This takes the place of two activity periods and is a chance to hike alongside your best friends in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
  • Camp is all about storytelling, so we’re going to be using our camp pennants a little differently this summer. Each camper who does not already have a pennant will be given one to hang in their cabin. This pennant will accumulate pins from activity bars, commendations, and electives; it’s a visual representation of their camp story! When campers come back as junior counselors or counselors their pennants get to hang in the dining hall forever. Over the years, our dining hall will be home to generations of camp stories.

Growth through friends and adventure. That’s what each of these things help us do, and we can’t wait to share them with you this summer!

39 days until camp,

Mary Page