My Camp Experience

I loved attending camp last year because I could interact with children I’ve never met before and could maybe meet with them again the next year. My favorite memory from camp is when all of my friends would try to sneak cheese puffs and snacks away from my counselor, Alyssa. A girl in my cabin really loved peanut butter truffles and would take them every time our counselor wasn’t looking.

One girl, named Brooke, I was really good friends with. She would keep me from going where I’m not supposed to even though it was her first year also. We did everything together, and were side by side partners. We did art, made lanyards, and sat together at dinner and on buses for field trips. One day we went hiking on a trail during a field trip up a really steep hill and I forgot my water bottle. Brooke had an extra one and gave it to me. When we got to the top of the hill, we found out it was a creek and had a picnic.

To raise money to go to camp again this year, I did lots of chores. My grandpa sometimes gives me money on holidays so I could save to buy stuff for myself or go to somewhere I want to go to again, like camp. The chores I did were cleaning the litter boxes in our house; we have tons of animals. I also cleaned our placemats and table after we ate. I feed all of our animals and do it all alone, it’s lots of fun. My outdoor cat was really shy and now she is more connected with people. We have 24 animals… mostly cats, we’re cat people. We do rescuing, and have a new kitten from the Camp Fire in Paradise. She was 4 months old when we got her and is doing really great.

If a friend was thinking about going to Y summer camp, I would say it’s a fun place to go. You can go to interact with lots of kids, get a chance to learn how to honor a flag. Everything is so fun at Y Camp, there’s nothing that you can’t do. There is archery, swimming, art, and you get to eat 3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are fun games that the whole camp gets to play like Find the Counselor and Paint Fight where people have Q-tips with different paint colors and rub on your arm, but there’s also monsters who have sponges and wipe off the colors. You have to get all the colors without getting caught to win.

Thank you for sharing your camp experience Caitlin.

– story gathered by Liz Crain, Senior Program Director of Fund Development & Events