‘The hardest job you’ll ever love’: Summer camps offer practical experiences, opportunities for new skills

By Steve Van Kooten

As summer creeps up and days fall off the calendar, camp programs are getting ready to host campers from across the country, and a critical part of that process is hiring staff for the upcoming season.

For local camps, like Wisconsin Badger Camp in Prairie du Chien and Sugar Creek Bible Camp in Ferryville, hiring numbers have slowly recovered since 2020, when 85 percent of summer camps kept their doors closed, according to the American Camping Association (ACA).

“Losing that momentum, especially on summer staff, with it being two years away from camp, has taken a couple summers to build back those numbers,” said Sugar Creek Executive Director Jesse Klosterboer.

Wisconsin Badger Camp’s Program Director Austin Rist said he has heard from colleges and other programs that engagement has increased over the past few years. Badger Camp had less than 10 counselors total in 2021 — their first year back from COVID — and will employ more than 20 international staff alone this year. They expect to serve between 500 and 600 campers this summer.

“It’s nice to see,” he said. “It’s not just me noticing that the engagement is more [sic]. The students for on-site work and work study are taking these opportunities.”

Rist attributed the increased interest to a change in attitude about summer camp programs from college students.

“The engagement has substantially increased to, ‘I’ll have an open mind about working at a summer camp,’ instead of, ‘Nope, that doesn’t have anything that pertains to my major.’ That’s one thing that’s really changed,” he said. 

According to Klosterboer, summer camp offers youth the opportunity to acquire new skills applicable to nearly every aspect of life.

“I think the staff benefit even more from the experience: the management skills, the leadership skills and the opportunities working in a summer camp — you’re not scared of public speaking after that,” he said.

“The things they learn at camp can be applied to almost any major, from human resources to psychology to adaptive recreation,” said Rist.

A summer at camp gives counselors a practical way to learn and apply patience, problem-solving and teamwork — all of the soft skills that are highly valued in the current workforce.

“I call them ‘oh crap skills,’” said Rist. “It’s chaos control in a different setting outside of their normal wheelhouse.”

“The staff talk about these lifelong benefits, and 10, 20, or 40 years later, they come back and they say, ‘This is where it started. This is where I learned that I have something to offer in a big way to the world because I saw it, and I practiced it,’” said Klosterboer. “You’ve got to get out of your home mold to change your shape.”

He added that over half of their summer employees come back the next summer.

“Summer staff keep coming back because, once they’re brave enough to take that plunge, they see how much they grow, and they go back to college or back to their job so much more confident because they know how to make those human connections. Camps are where real connections are made, and the ability to connect just explodes when you’re immersed in this setting for more than a couple of hours.”

Rist said that the benefits of working at a camp go beyond the paycheck. This summer, the camp will host workers from a diverse roster of countries that includes Mexico, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom.

”They get to meet individuals from around the world and learn about different cultures and backgrounds, as well as teach a little bit about their background,” he said.

For further information, application information and programming details, contact Sugar Creek Bible Camp at 608-734-3113 or at sugarcreekbiblecamp.org/contact.

For further information, contact Wisconsin Badger Camp at 608-348-9689 or wiscbadgercamp@badgercamp.org. 

For camper and staff applications, visit their website at badgercamp.org.