#bc during summer breaks i was usually at my parents house in my hometown

[gojoest]

not to be tmi about it, but once upon a time life presented me the opportunity to have a fiery romance with my favorite journalist with whom i have a 25 yr age gap and who is a dilf

[sophiexrph]

sophie’s guide to writing overnight camp staff

what am i doing writing this in the middle of fall/winter, you ask? good question. i was being nostalgic today and thought that this might help some of you out ! if you want to write a character who worked at an overnight camp at any point in their lives, here’s a little guide :)

disclaimer ! i went to a jewish overnight camp in the midwest ! many experiences may differ from mine, but i’m just gonna write out my own experience, and people who went to other kinds of overnight camps can feel free to add to this if they’d like ! this is going to get long, so i’m going to put it under a cut :) here we go ! please feel free to message me if you have any questions too !

staff at my camp were allowed to start working at the camp at age seventeen or so - when you’re going into your senior year of high school. 

staff come from all over ! i want to say that a majority at my camp were campers when they were younger, but there’s also international staff ! there’s this thing called camp convention (or something like that idk i never actually went) where a bunch of camps travel abroad to hire staff ! our international staff mainly came from israel, the uk, and australia :) 

staff usually get one full day off a week (evening->evening; i.e. monday evening->tuesday evening)

staff at a jewish camp do not have to be jewish ! most of our international staff were not jewish, and they typically got shabbat (friday evening->saturday evening) off work

with that being said, at my jewish camp, we did celebrate shabbat every week ! that means sundresses and khakis my dudes

staff do not make a lot of money; it’s like a running joke how little money is made. i can’t remember exact figures but it’s something ridiculous like $3000 for the whole summer (we had 7 weeks of camp+1 staff week before camp started). that’s only $3000 for 8 weeks of 24/7 work. people come back year after year bc they love camp, it’s definitely not the pay lmao

camps have traditions ! we had a bunch, but to list a few; color wars towards the end of camp, where the camp’s split up into 5 teams to fight for victory - it’s is very divisive, people love it or hate it, and the people who love it go all in -- there are a few years that i lost my voice bc of it. staff auction at the end of the summer, where staff make things that are centered around camp and sell them to other staff members. staff scholarship where hardworking staff are awarded money to use towards school. cw night was the last night of camp where the whole camp gathers in the dining hall and sings songs and watches the videos that the video activities made during session and cries.

speaking of traditions - songs ! lots of camps have songs that they sing all summer, every summer. our camp’s songs included brown eyed girl by van morrison, circle game by joni mitchell, closer to fine by the indigo girls, have you ever seen the rain by creedence clearwater revival, lean on me by bill withers, and sweet home alabama by lynyrd skynyrd (for some reason). there are also songs exclusive to the last night of camp that are designed to make people cry about leaving camp. these included leaving on a jet plane by john denver, save tonight by eagle-eye cherry, good riddance by green day, cat’s in the cradle by harry chapin, and, at the very end of the night, all the lights come up and everyone stands in a circle with their cabin and sings bless this house, which i now realize is not an actual song outside of jewish overnight camp communities - the lyrics are as followed: 

Bless this house for we are all together // Bless us all, we may not meet again // Think of all the happiness we’ve found here // Take it home and share it with a friend // Come along, sing a song, and you’ll never say goodbye // And you’ll see, and agree, friendships won need never die.

camp life is divided up into groups by campers’ age (and typically counselors’ age!) into groups called villages ! the youngest village of campers (and therefore youngest staff) were 2nd-5th graders, then it was 6th & 7th graders, 8th & 9th graders, and finally 10th graders in the last one. the older staff are typically put with the older villages, and you typically move up with the campers you were assigned to in years prior (not necessarily the same cabin, but the same village !) that way, you get to watch as your campers grow and mature, which can be the weirdest thing.

camp days are very structured ! for my camp, it went like this: wake up->morning assembly (where the whole village gets together and tries to wake up before breakfast)-> breakfast -> cabin clean up -> cabin activity/instructional swim (depending on the age of the campers!) -> activities (that the campers sign up for at the beginning of the session, staff accompany the campers to the activities) -> lunch -> rest hour -> free swim (where campers can choose to go to the pool or to the lake) -> more activities -> free time (all of camp is open, campers choose to go where they want!) -> dinner -> evening program (planned by the staff typically the night before -> camper lights out -> staff meeting -> staff to bed

there are more than one type of counselors ! my camp had counselors and specialists. counselors stay with their campers all day, aside from during activity times, when they choose which activity to attend for the day. specialists are hired to work in a focus area in camp ! whether that’s the ropes course or the art shack or the pottery barn or the basketball courts or the stables, these are typically people with experience in the area to lead activities throughout the day and rejoin their cabin for meals and at night ! there are also supervisors. these are two supervisors per village and one per specialty area (think ropes supervisor, art supervisor, sports supervisor, etc). these are typically the oldest staff, and people who are juniors in college (age 21 or so for the youngest village) and above.

speaking of cabins, there are typically 4 staff members to a cabin, two counselors and two specialists, and about 15-20 campers in a cabin. that means there’s about 1 staff member to every 4-5 campers in the morning and at night, and 1 counselor member to every 10 campers or so during the day when the specialists are doing their focus area related things.

camp hook ups are real my dude. everyone (including campers) knows which staff are hooking up. sometimes, those hook ups last more than one summer, and sometimes those hook ups become marriages ! my favorite staff member when i was a camper married his camp girlfriend last fall and i was so excited for the two of them. there’s another staff couple getting married this summer. it happens !

yes, everyone wears those tacky tie dye shirts. and everyone is excited to make and wear those tacky tie die shirts. 

some staff, but not all, have camp nicknames that they only go by at camp. my first couple of years, there was a staff member named lauren who went by toaster. others use their hometown or an abbreviated version of the name of their hometown. some use abbreviation of their last names (ie stallsman->stalls).

camp food is Not Good. after campers went to bed, i know more than a few staff members who would take their cars out into the real world to get fast food and bring it back !

speaking of cars at camp, there aren’t many, and you don’t see them at mine ! the parking lot is around the corner on the road into camp so as not to remind homesick campers that there’s people who leave every week for breaks. i want to say there were about 20 spots in our parking lot and about 150 staff members ! people typically arrange rides home for days off. 

international staff are paired with host families for their days off so they always have someplace to go to where they’ll be welcome. host families are campers’ parents who sign up to help out !

the camp community is very tight knit. people will talk to each other all throughout the year and get excited to come back to camp every summer. it’s hard to say goodbye when the time comes for summer internships and jobs, but there are always going to be camp friends to come back to. 

camp makes people more outgoing, hardworking, and, in my opinion, happier. it becomes a second home for you to become the best version of yourself and makes you want to come back year after year. 

EDIT TO ADD: cell phones are only allowed for staff at camp ! you can only use them when campers are not around as per camp rules, but not all staff follow that rule ! i’ve seen staff use their phones for pictures on shabbat, or youtube videos in the cabins before lights out ! other staff use their phones for daily camp related things like playing music for wake up/cabin clean up. campers are not allowed to have phones and their phones will be confiscated if they’re caught with them !