Camp America - Getting the Best Camp America Experience For You

Back in 2001, it had been 2 years since I finished my a-levels and was into the 2nd year of my 'year out'. I had no plans to go to uni, it didn't feel right for me yet...so got a full time job whilst I pondered what life would have in store for me. Working was fine, but I still needed something more. After looking through various books on 'Your Gap Year' - I stumbled across the Camp America programme. I had known a couple of people who had done it and found myself getting hooked on the idea. I spoke to a few people and found advice on the best way to go about getting the ball rolling. By this time I had already done a lot of youth work with disadvantaged kids - so I decided that these were the types of kids that I wanted to work with again.

I had a look round the Camp America website, which was helpful but somewhat vague, as I really wanted to find the right camp for me...IF I was going to go. Best to my knowledge, there are 2 main ways to get a job with Camp America. You can either fill out all the application forms and send them off - which will get you an interview at a local office with a CA representative - then they will place you in a camp. OR you can go along to a convention, meet the camp directors face to face, have an 'on the spot' interview and in effect choose your own camp (if they accept you, of course).

I wanted to work as a counsellor - working directly with the children. There are other jobs with Camp America, such as maintenance or kitchen work. I wasn't particularly interested in these. After much research, I found out that there are hundreds and hundreds and HUNDREDS of camps across America. What's more, which I didn't realise, is that there are specialist camps. So, if you are a dancer you can work in a camp that acts as a summer dance school. If you're a horse rider - you can go to a specialist horse riding camp. If you like Britney Spears, you can even work in her camp (god help us) for the performing arts... You get the idea, basically, you can really cater which camp you want to work out, to your own personal specifications.

So, I decided that I wanted to work as a drama counsellor, but I also wanted to work at a camp for disadvantaged children. I toyed with the idea of working at a camp for disabled kids, but I didn't feel that I would be emotionally strong enough. By this time, I had decided what I wanted to DO at camp and the sort of camp I wanted to be at. I only had left to decide about the location of the camp. I decided I wanted to work near New York, so I could visit the theatre district and get my fill of shows and soak up the Broadway buzz.

I went along to the convention that at the time was held at Olympia in London. I didn't like the risk of putting the fate of my summer in the hands of an administrator at the Camp America offices. Conventions are usually held all over the UK, but obviously their website should be able to give you the relevant information. Their website is www.campamerica.co.uk. I turned up with my ammo: a CV, Application forms, Passport (for ID) plus all the other stuff they tell you bring - such as references etc, and a nifty presentation folder that I had made, summarising all the work I had done with children, proving why I would be perfect at my chosen camp.

When arriving at Olympia I was given a 'goody bag', which amongst the usual pens, american sweets and all the other things, had a floor plan of all the represented camps, all listed in different categories (such as their specialism and so forth) - GREAT! After much perusal, I found a lot of camps that:
a) worked directly with homeless children
b) wanted performing artists
and
c) were based in the New York area - perfect!

I was able to scout around the various stalls and have a look at what I thought the camps were about, seeing what I thought the directors were like etc. I was able to do this without committing myself, just merely observing what was going on. After satisfying my curiousity that a camp looked good to me - I was able to have an on the spot interview and then get my application processed and leave the convention as an employee of a camp for the summer...hurrah! I spoke to many 'rich' camps that in my opinion had such awful attitudes (these were only the few I saw, that's not to say that all rich camps have awful attitudes, of course!). I spoke to one director who was happy to tell me all about the awards they had won, but when asking what the awards were for exactly, I was faced with much uming and ahhing and reminded about how much financial/celebrity support that they had had and 'isn't it the best?' - my answer to which was, not really. I was getting tired and frustrated with some of the it's-all-about-the-money-and-we-couldn't-care-less -about-the-kids impressions I was getting. Then I found a little stall for a donations reliant camp. After speaking to the representative (the director couldn't make the convention) she drastically undersold the camp to me. It was a camp for homeless kids from New York City. I was told that some of the children would be the most volatile I would ever had worked with before and have issues beyond anything I will ever have to come across. How the living accomodation was basic, that they had no electicity, no windows in the cabins - just mesh separating us from the wilderness. How they don't have flushing toilets, but latrines. How they rely on donations to operate and so forth. But their foundation was built on the mutual desire to look after these children and give them a positive experience that was far removed from the harsh city life that they knew... I was sold - this was the camp for me. A camp who had a heart that was clearly about looking after the children and not worrying about how many material things they can get from corporate, rich, fat cats.

After being accepted onto my camp's programme and the hand shaking was done - I joined the loooongest queue in the world to get my application processed.

All done...

So, I had a few months on my hands to get ready for the experience of a lifetime. After some admininstrative work of forms being passed between myself and the camp, time sped by. I had lots of group email communication from the camp - so found the perfect opportunity to get to know some of my potential 'roomies' with msn/aol chats - by this time I was getting incredibly excited, anxious and nerves were creeping in for good measure.

FINALLY the day of my flight arrived. I was literally buzzing with nerves and excitement. After all the goodbyes with family and friends, I found myself sat in the departure lounge of Heathrow. There were many people huddled together, toting their Camp America tags on their hand luggage. It was a very bizarre experience. I wanted to meet loads of people but at the same was more concerned about finding people who would be at my camp...which was like finding a needle in a haystack. Once I was on the plane - after much small talk of 'hi, which camp are you going to?' and 'what are doing at camp?' and 'are you nervous?' and 'No, I'm not going to Britney-blonky-Spear's camp,' etc etc, I befriended a fellow Camp American. It turned out we were together for the next 24 hours too. The flight was great - the back of the plane was overloaded with Camp America workers, ready for the Camp America summer, all sharing stories and getting hyper on the plane food and drink.

Landed! We flew into Newark airport and were ferried into a local Ramada hotel for the night. We had a 5'o'clock start (...urgh) I didn't get much sleep anyway - I was in a room with 3 other guys and 2 double beds! Nothing like sharing your personal space, eh? 2 of the guys were Australian and the other, Polish. After finding out that none of them were at my camp, I tried to doze off. I was amongst the eclectism already and loving it. Utterly exhausted, I made it down to breakfast met up with my 'plane' buddy. Found my bus that was taking us to Port Authority in NYC to get the NEXT bus off to New York State where my camp was. This was the most exciting bit, as hour by hour, I 'collected' more and more people who were going to my camp. It was like we were all part of some weird american find-your-fellow-campers filter system. It turned out that the polish guy who shared my room WAS going to my camp - and his accent, mixed with exhaustion made me misunderstand him completely.

On the bus, the city drifted away and the wooded land of New York State crept in. We got dropped off at some deserted petrol station, ready for the pick up from camp. FINALLY I was there, at the camp that I had seen pictures of at that convention all those months ago. I met the faces of the screen-names I had gotten to know via AOL, and was shown around camp. My first impression was how on earth am I going to find my way round this place - each cabin looked like the next and each path and tree looked no different from each other...I thought I was going to be forever lost. We were there for a week and half before the kids arrived, so we all shared cabins in our 'tribes' so we could bond. The first day was spent getting to know each other, getting over jet lag and climatising to camp life.

I felt like someone had plucked me out of my comfort zone and thrust me into an alien environment full of dirt and bugs that I only thought existed in books and jungles. I half-heartedly unpacked some bits and looked through all my photos, good luck cards and 'we'll miss you' presents that I was given...I was homesick already. I went to bed planning what I was going to say to the director to get me back on the first flight home. After a sleepful night, I awoke full of energy and determination that I was going to stick this through and fully embraced camp life. As the week went on, I grew to love it - ashamedly, I even grew a softspot for our grim latrines and showers...it was sort of fun showering with a new bug each day - like a zoological lesson for free!

Setting up camp was so much fun. We were split into 3 tribes, that the kids would join (rather like houses in a school). One was all male, one all female, one mixed. I was in the mixed tribe which I was really pleased about. Each tribe was given a part of camp to prepare, so we had to project manager ourselves to get everything sorted. Camp was like another world - we all gave each other random nicknames, shared jokes and I knew I had made the right choice in chosing my own camp. We were from all over the world and amazingly, everyone clicked with each other...obviously there were a few issues here and there, but essentially we were a team singing from the same hymn sheet.

We were further split into sub groups who had to prepare evening activities for the kids - and had to practice our programmes of entertainment on each other, to get it right for the arrival of the children. We spent our evenings playing random games all of which involved some degree of humiliation - such as 'Lip Synch Karoake' - in full costume to a song, not of your choosing (I believe our was 'Like a Virgin' in the style of a Ballet!) Our last fews days of freedom were celebrated with swimming in the camp's lake (which was stunningly beautiful) trips to a local beach, shopping at the mall and general chilling out. By this time, we had been divided into our cabin groups. Each cabin had to have 2 counsellors and space for 5 kids. Our cabin was ready to go - after our week of training - learning procedures and all the things you would expect to be taught if you were working with young children.

AT LAST, the reason I was at the camp at all, arrived - the kids...oh-my-gosh...NOTHING had prepared me for this. They were driven in on massive yellow, school buses from the city - and they were bouncing off the bus walls. We herded them into our Great Hall (it was called 'great' but was basically a huge wooden marquee) gave them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (which are surprisingly delish) and we all sat ready for them to be given their cabin groups...rather Harry-Potter-sorting-hat-esque! I sat looking round at the kids thinking 'please please don't give me the one ripping the hair out of the counsellor over there' and 'please not the one who is kicking and spitting at everyone'. These kids were wild, but understandably so. Thankfully, I will never have to go through a fraction of the stuff some of these kids had been through at their tiny age of 7!

Our camp worked differently to many others. Usually at a camp, you have the same kids for the whole summer, but in order to get as many kids from NYC to our camp as possible, we had 4, 9 day sessions with kids from different boroughs and sadly, our first session kids lived up to the Bronx stereotype. My co-counsellor and I headed to our cabin (named after one of the Native American tribes) with our 4 new residents. I fell in love with them instantly - I was determined that I would look after these kids as best I could and make sure they knew that they could feel safe and happy in their 'holiday' home.

The weeks went by. After some settling in and daily ups and downs of the children missing their mums, wetting the beds, crying, kicking, fighting, we got into the full routine of camp life. Camp was simply wonderful, I got to experience all sorts of things that I never would have done sitting back home in England. We had cook outs, fires with marshmellows on spindly twigs (exactly how they do in the films) - discovered the wonder of 'smores' (chocolate and marshmellow melted in between two crackers)...mmmm. We went on hikes and slept on rocks under the stars in bear inhabitated woodland (!!) I saw so many animals that you would never see over here (unless I was in a zoo), chipmunks, various snakes, weird and wonderful bugs, racoons, not forgetting the bears! (Ok, I didn't see a bear, but the park rangers warned us to be on the look out in case). I even got to experience the wonder of lymes disease...from a tick... nice (by the way, you can get ticks at camp - joyous!).

About half way through my time there, I found out that my Nan was ill and passed away. Thanks to Camp America, I was put on a flight home the same day. My camp and Camp America were nothing but supportive. I got the news in the morning, then by late afternoon I was back in JFKs departure lounge ready to get a flight home. My friends at camp were wonderfully supportive also, everyone came to say goodbye to me as I got in the car to leave, I felt so touched that these people who I had known only for about 6 weeks, really cared about me. The whole time they had turned into a kind of extended family, but I never realised until that moment. After the funeral, I decided that I wanted to go back - it felt as if a part of me was still at camp and I felt an overwhelming urgency to complete my experience over there. Camp America arranged my flight back a week later, and I was at camp again.

With Camp America you pay certain fees (don't worry they don't take too much money from you) it was these fees that helped, inpartcularly the insurance policy they covered me with. Being part of the Camp America programme meant that I didn't have to pay for a single extra flight. It was whilst I was back home that I found out I had caught lyme's disease from that bloomin tick. The chances of getting it are about 1-1000, I believe. Basically, it's not very nice, it's a poisoning of the blood and if you don't catch it in time, it can kill you. The doctors in the UK had to research all about it before they could diagnose, as we don't have it in this country - typical! Eventually medication was found, but I was not put off one bit about going back.

When the summer was over, I felt desperately sad. Our last night was spent celebrating with a huge barbeque, with speeches, presentations and all the other sentimentally heart wrenching I-can't-believe-that-it's-all-over-tomorrow.

Ok, now comes the bad bit... Trying to get home again...Somehow in the chaos of Camp America arranging my flights back to England then returning to America, the person who booked all those unexpected flights for me, forgot to tell the department that arrange all flights to England for the end of summer, that I was back in America. My flight home at the end of summer was automatically cancelled somehow when I flew back home half way through. It wasn't as disasterous as it could have been, as I was still able to get on the flight due to people not turning up. The ridiculous thing was that Camp America had employed a very young and inexperienced person to be our representative at JFK airport, who's customer service skills were awful - as he only knew how to give people allocation who were on his list, and obviously, I wasn't on his list!

There are cheaper ways to experience life at camp. Some of my camp mates that were there, went through organisations such as Bunac and other such companys, who don't have as many agency fees, thus those people were paid more. However, if I wasn't with Camp America, I would have had to arrange all my own flights to get home, and feeling the way I was - that would have been the last thing I felt sane enough to do. So I felt very lucky to be with them.

All in all, I would recommend Camp America to anyone and everyone, I would even make it the law for all people to try, I am that passionate about it. But having said that, I know many who have had bad experiences at camp. So essentially it can be gamble - but a lot of it is about your attitude and whether or not you choose to fully embrace camp life.

MarcoG
© 2008