Cabin Life
Much of the growth and development children experience at camp comes through the experience of living together in a camp setting with their counselor. Camp allows children to develop newly found confidence in dealing with real-life situations including camper health and safety.
Living in a cabin with children of different backgrounds encourages campers to work together as a team. Early in the camp session, each counselor meets with the cabin members to establishing rules of cabin conduct (each camper participates and gives input at every cabin meeting). Campers take turns sweeping and doing cabin chores, striving to have the cleanest cabin at inspection time. Each camper is reminded to maintain personal hygiene daily; younger campers sometimes go together with their counselor to the bath-house to make sure that everyone showers and brushes their teeth (all showers have private curtained dressing areas and hot & cold running water).
Campers are assigned cabins by age. Each camper selects a bunk bed and shelf for personal items. Each cabin houses 6-8 campers. A counselor also lives and sleeps in the cabin with the campers. All cabins have electricity and are just a few steps away from the bathhouse.
Cabin group activity is a daily part of camp life. After participating with different groups in daily activities, the cabin group comes back together in the afternoon for a cabin activity time. Some of the major cabin group activities include: skit-night rehearsal, camp-out (preparing a camp site and returning at night to camp-out), creek-stomping, sports, and more.
Friendships with cabinmates give each camper a feeling of belonging to a special group. Each night, counselors lead informal “rap” discussions with their cabins followed by a short motivational or devotional reading or discussion. Campers love the sense of validation, belonging, and self-respect they gain from living together in their own cabin group.
Senior staff members visit cabins at lights out to check-in with campers and staff prior to bed-time. Counselors read bedtime stories and have special group sharing time each night in the cabin prior to lights out.
