Monthly Archives:September 2020

Written by : Calla Craze and Will Dellinger

Today is all about honoring the hard-working Americans who shed blood, sweat, and tears to build our country and make it prosper. There are so many people out there who are under-appreciated in their work, but it truly takes all types to keep things running. To all you workers out there who hold society up with your physical and intellectual labor, we salute you!

It takes all types

In many ways, Camp is a microcosm of civilization. Just as it takes many forms of labor to keep the country going, it takes a diverse set of skills and workers to make camp run every summer. From maintenance to office work to cabin supervision, there’s always a ton to be taken care of every day. The contributions of our counselors and other staff to our community are not lost on us, and while we try to express our gratitude throughout the summer, we can never say it enough: Thank you for all you do!

Of course, every TP and Woodland counselor knows what it’s like to put in physical labor: each summer our staff puts in a ton of effort to get camp all set up for the arrival of our campers. There is what seems like a never ending list of tasks to keep our staff’s bodies moving for an entire week. We get to do crazy things like bring the boats down from the barn, heavy duty cleaning of EVERYTHING, and of course, even things like poster making. Ask our staff and they’ll tell you that this work is very satisfying, but by the time campers arrive we are definitely ready to switch gears and start exercising our brains as we become instructors, coaches, role models and leaders.

Work hard, Play hard!

Make no mistake— Being a camp counselor is hard work even if you aren’t up to your neck in the lake turning augers! It’s a lot of work to teach new skills to kids and keep the peace in a community of children and adults from all different parts of the world. However, it’s a kind of work that is rewarding by its very nature. So many of our staff come back year after year to watch their campers grow and to be a part of something bigger.

Working In and Out of Camp Season

There’s a lot of work that goes into making sure camp can happen every summer, especially from the Jordans and our wonderful office staff. This summer we took the opportunity to revamp the program and make general improvements to the property to make the best of our once-in-a-lifetime summer off of camp. As you’ve already heard, we put in a lot of hours to work on the business both in terms of the program and our facilities. A lot of these projects included good old fashioned manual labor!

One of our all time favorite rites of passage into the role of a counselor is the task of putting in the docks! Believe it or not, campers, those don’t actually stay in year round! The summer just didn’t feel right without seeing that beautiful pier reaching out towards the middle of the lake, so we took it upon ourselves to put them in anyway. Nothing like getting those huge wooden platforms set up in the water to remind us how much we appreciate everything our staff does every summer!

We all know this year has been a challenging one, but it has also given us the opportunity to grow and appreciate the people who help make the world go round in new ways. We appreciate you, staff, and look forward to working side by side with our favorite people again in summer 2021!