Option A) Work at an overnight summer camp. My only experience as an overnight camp counselor was the summer after I graduated high school. I arrived in North Carolina for my first time ever in the south (excluding the Atlanta airport in 2006) and began a wonderful, challenging, exhausting experience at URJ 6 Points Sports Academy, the nation's first overnight Jewish sports camp. Overall it was a good experience, but upon returning home 7 weeks later, I decided that one summer was enough. I thought that I just couldn't handle another summer of working 15 hour days, 7 days a week, surviving on 6-7 hours of sleep a night and a mere hour per day not surrounded by giggling, whining, adorable, loud children. Because of the challenging environment, I grew up a lot that summer, and I think it prepared me well for college. (Going to college and living on my own is much easier than this job was.)
And yet, a year and a half after completing what was arguably the most difficult job of my life, I am considering once again working at a camp. Why? I LOVE working with children. I think most people are good at many things, but have one area in which they are truly excellent. For me, that is working with children.
If I were to work at a camp again, I think I would like to work closer to home. 6 Points was an amazing chance to see a new part of the country, but I was also quite out of my element. Additionally, the humidity was disgusting. (Yes, I am spoiled with such low humidity in New Mexico.) Currently I am looking at Rancho del Chaparral near Cuba, New Mexico and JCC Ranch Camp in Colorado.
Rancho del Chaparral is a camp at which I spent many summers as a kid. It was formerly run by Girl Scouts of Chaparral Council, hence the name. A few years ago, two New Mexico councils merged to form Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, so now this new council operates Rancho. I first attended various family sessions at Rancho with my family and other families from our troop, and then attended resident camp by myself for the first time when I was 11. It is absolutely an outdoors camp. Girls (and staff) live in platform tents and other structures with no electricity. There is running water but it is not heated, and the bathrooms are latrines (port-a-potties). The biggest pro about this option is that I loved this camp as a little kid so it would be meaningful to go back as a staff member.
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| Rancho del Chaparral near Cuba, New Mexico |
JCC Ranch Camp is about a 6-hour drive from home and is run by JCC Denver. I have never been, but I have heard some about it and have checked them out online. They seem to be an outdoorsy Jewish camp, with 400 acres of land and many outdoor activities like rock climbing, horseback riding, and overnight out-of-camp trips by bike, horse, and foot. They serve both boys and girls from 2nd grade through high school age. The biggest pro about this option is that is that it is a Jewish camp.
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| JCC Ranch Camp Elbert, Colorado |
Option B) Get a "real job" in town. The biggest pro to this option would be seeing my home friends who I don't get to see nearly as often now that we are in college. If I work at a camp, I would be gone for 8-10 weeks, a huge chunk of our time off from school. If I did live at home and work, I think I would like to get a job in a field related to what I want to do after college. Right now this is a little bit up in the air, but I think I'd like to go into physical therapy, elementary school PE, personal training, or health promotion. Then again there is the idea of working at a camp as my "real job" after college… we'll see where I end up!
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