Camp Behind the Scenes

Six weeks. That’s how long the camp actually ran.

I started planning it in February.

I don’t think most parents dropping their kids off in June had any idea that “camp” started for me on a random Tuesday in the dead of winter, hunched over a spreadsheet trying to figure out group rosters before I even knew how many kids were coming. By the time the first camper walked through the door for Sports Galore, I’d already spent months on things nobody was ever going to see — allergy trackers, counselor timesheets, intake forms, a wellness policy I rewrote probably four times, vendor contracts for six different theme weeks. Forward Momentum. Challenge Island. Museum of Science and Industry. The traveling zoo. The bounce house guy. The face painter. All of it was booked and confirmed before school even let out.

And then camp actually starts and you realize the planning was the easy part.

Running camp day to day is a completely different kind of tired. It’s not the fun-exhausted from chasing kids around all day, though there’s plenty of that too. It’s the kind where you’re the one everyone calls when something goes wrong — a kid gets hurt, a counselor doesn’t show, two staff members have a conflict you now have to referee, a parent is upset about something you had zero control over. I documented incidents I never thought I’d have to document. I had to let someone go mid-summer, which is its own particular kind of awful when you’re also trying to keep six weeks of programming running without a hiccup for 40+ kids who don’t care about any of that — they just want to know if today’s the make your own pizza day.

I said yes to all of it back in February without really knowing what I was saying yes to. I don’t think you ever fully do.

Here’s the thing though — camp ended in late July and I’m still thinking about it. Not in a nostalgic, “wasn’t that great” way. In a “what would I do differently” way. What I’d build earlier. What I’d hand off instead of holding onto myself. Where I let my standards slide because I was tired and where I’m glad I didn’t. Which counselors I’d hire back in a heartbeat and which conversations I should’ve had sooner instead of hoping things would work themselves out.

I think that’s the part nobody tells you about running something like this — the season doesn’t really end when the last kid goes home. You’re still carrying it. Still sorting through what worked and what almost broke you and what you’d never do again.

Six weeks of camp. Four months of planning. And I’m already a few weeks into figuring out how to do it better next year.