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An Ambitious Summertime Experiment between Friends
By Meredith Klassen
When we were kids, the ebbing of the school year triggered giddy delight for my sisters and me. Back then, long summer days were simple and splendid: sleep in, ingest a healthy dose of Life cereal and Bugs Bunny cartoons, and then bounce out the front door in search of the neighborhood posse of friends.
I cherish the memories of our childhood summers, but so much has changed in the last 30 years. As parents ourselves now, my sisters and I cannot fathom the thought of our children running amok in the neighborhood unsupervised all summer long. Now, we face the challenge that so many parents dutifully face each year; how to keep our children safe, stimulated, and busy during those long summer months without stretching the budget too far.
Like many parents, we begin summertime preparations months in advance. We stockpile vacation hours, save for camp enrollment fees, and research summer youth programs that both interest our children and fit our budgets. We also shamelessly cash in any babysitting favors with the grandparents and barter with friends for occasional summer kid swaps. Each year it’s a routine that we have come to dread.
This past summer, while facing yet another anxiety riddled, pocket-book draining school break, my older sister, Ellen, and I looked to each other for new ideas. We both manage busy households and work part-time. Each of us has two children between the ages of 2 and 9. Our husbands work long days and are happy to leave the annual summer kid-scheduling entirely to us.
When Ellen first mentioned the idea of a summer camp co-op, my initial reaction was cautionary. Take my summer vacation to babysit our combined gaggle of kids? Hmmm, how much fun would that be? But, when she explained that a camp co-op is not just babysitting or a week-long play date, but a full day camp experience with themed activities and a focus on learning and social development, I became intrigued. Then, when she added that a camp co-op is organized and run by parents and is free for the participants, I was hooked.
The advantages of a camp co-op were undeniable; peace of mind knowing our kids would be safe and well-cared for by a known and trusted adult was first and foremost. Second, we liked the idea of avoiding costly summer camps. And then there was the flexibility of tailoring the schedule to suit our needs. It didn’t take long before we agreed to give it a try. What was the worst that could happen? If it wasn’t right for us, we could always return to watching each other’s kids in between carefully planned (and paid for) summer activities.
We mounted the camp co-op project by narrowing the participants to include just our similarly-aged girls in the camp; Ellen’s daughter, Skye, age 6, and my daughter, Taylor, age 7. Next we pitched the idea to our friends Lisa (with daughter, Kenzie, age 6), and Laura (with daughter, Samantha, age 8.) They signed on almost immediately and “Camp Wildflower” was born.
Over the next few weeks the Ellen, Lisa, Laura, and I communicated through e-mail to fine tune the details of Camp Wildflower. The camp would be a total of 4 weeks during the month of July. Each of our week-long stints would have a different theme to center activities, materials, and crafts around. Camp days would begin after breakfast and end after lunch. Camp Wildflower was shaping up!
With just a few weeks to go before school was out for the summer, I hosted a pre-camp family barbeque to get the Wildflower girls together. During our backyard party, the girls painted brightly colored pink and yellow camp t-shirts while parents socialized and shared camp itineraries.
By the time Ellen’s first week of camp rolled around, the girls were giddy with anticipation. The kind of giddy that my sisters and I were when we were kids. Ellen chose a nature theme, so her week included bird-watching and hiking treks, along with field trips to the local natural history museum, the botanical garden, and to a neighborhood creek to study pollywogs, crayfish, and minnows.
Ellen’s carefully planned nature-themed crafts and activities kept the girls fascinated with the subject. Birdseed feeders, trail mix, bird masks, and butterfly stained glass drawings were some of their favorites. Using found objects from their hikes, they made “sun prints” and spider web art. Ellen’s nature week ended with dirt cakes made with chocolate pudding, crushed Oreo cookies, and a buried gummy worm surprise.
Next was Lisa’s cooking and gardening themed week of camp. Lisa led the girls on field trips to the local grocery store, a plant nursery, an organic vegetable farm, and a u-pick blueberry patch. While studying the garden, the girls designed their own aprons, decorated flower pots, dried flowers, built a wormery, and planted in Lisa’s backyard vegetable patch. In between gardening, Lisa showed the girls how to make smoothies, muffins, home-made pizza, lemon sorbet, dried fruit, and even ice cream.
After the girls fun week with Lisa, my zoo and farm animal themed camp was up next. We explored the animal kingdom with appropriately themed crafts like felt animal ornaments, and animal print journals. And we played games like farm animal bingo and rat maze. Field trips included a tour of a miniature horse farm and a bunny rescue operation along with visits to a dog show and the zoo. The highlight of animal camp was a backyard farm tour arranged with the help of some neighbors from my childhood stomping ground. The girls plucked freshly laid eggs from a hen house, groomed a horse, held baby turkeys, petted a tortoise, and met two young Nubian goats named Claude and Vincent.
The final week of Camp Wildflower was Laura’s water-themed week camp. Her itinerary included a day at the beach, a trip to the children’s sea center, splashing in the backyard pool, a harbor water taxi tour, and tide-pooling. The girls loved Laura’s crafts activities, especially the sea life collages, beach glass necklaces and seashell picture frames.
After our month long camp co-op concluded, Ellen, Lisa, Laura, and I agreed that our summer camp co-op experiment was an overwhelming success. We had found a way to provide safe, fun, and educational experiences for our kids over summer, without breaking the bank. After a few pats on the back and a celebratory dinner out together, we are now talking about a repeat summer camp co-op this summer. Hmm, I think I feel that giddy feeling coming on again.
Ready to give it a try?
Our top 10 suggestions for a successful camp co-op:
1. Start planning early. Choose a start date and block out your camp dates as early as 6 months in advance. If you have several families, consider breaking camp weeks up into two-week sessions.
2. Schedule a pre-camp social function. Kids sometimes need a little time to warm up to new ideas. A pre-camp gathering is a great opportunity for campers to hang out a little before launching the camp co-op. It is also a great way for the camp hosts to meet husbands and siblings too.
3. Create a camp identity. Choose a name and help campers paint t-shirts, tie-die bandanas, or decorate beach hats with your camp name in mind.
4. Create a camp itinerary for each week of camp to share with campers and families. An itinerary will help camp parents prepare their children for the day’s activities (tennies or flip flops? A hat or no hat? Double layer of sunscreen?) Swap a rough draft of your itinerary about 3 weeks prior to camp to make sure everyone is comfortable with the planned activities. Then e-mail a final draft a few days before camp begins.
5. Choose a beginning and ending time for your camp that suits the needs of your families.
6. Decide how to handle snacks and lunches each day. To pack or not to pack, that is the question.
7. Divvy up camp expenses. Who will pay for craft supplies, snacks, and fees for museums, parks, tours, etc.?
8. Discuss siblings. Because parents facilitate a camp co-op, how to incorporate siblings into the mix should be discussed. Younger siblings can be made “honorary” camp participants, while older siblings can be “hired” to be Assistant Camp Directors and assigned age-appropriate jobs like handing out snacks, distributing art supplies, acting as a field trip line leader, and packing and unpacking lunch boxes.
9. Create an emergency contact list for both camp hosts and parents to keep handy during the camp co-op. Be sure to include home, work, and cell numbers for each camper’s parents, as well as emergency back-up contacts, and family doctor and insurance information.
10. Schedule a time to meet after the camp co-op concludes to swap photos and compare notes on what worked, and what didn’t. Oh, and don’t forget your calendars in case your group decides to block out camp dates for next summer!
