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As appeared in San Francisco Chronicle
April 29, 2007
SETTING UP SUMMER CAMP
By Delfin Vigil
School is almost out. Everything on television is getting, like, totally boring. And marshmallow prices are starting to skyrocket.
All that can only mean one thing: Summer camp season is upon us.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean summer camp itself can be defined as one thing. These days, finding the right summer camp for you and your kid can be like trying to agree on a box of cereal.
Let's see: We've got sports camp, space camp, computer camp, diet camp, magic camp, rock star camp, art camp, travel camp, Spanish camp, Christian camp. There's even Gandhi Camp in (surprise!) West Marin County.
Good grief! Whatever happened to good ol' summer camp camp, Charlie Brown?
Of the approximate 11 million campers across the country, 10 million are children and 1 million are adults, according to Allison MacMunn, a public relations specialist with the American Camp Association. The nearly 100-year-old nonprofit group keeps tabs on camps of all kinds. One of the clearest changes in camp culture noted by the association is a 215 percent increase in family, adult and senior camps in the past 15 years.
More than likely, your kid won't get as excited about a weekend bingo binge as Grandma will. And for many, getting a break from parents or kids can be the inspiration for seeking out a camp.
"The sense of leaving your neighborhood and going somewhere different where you have to learn new things and become part of another community is the whole point of going to a summer camp," says Ann Woods, who opened Roughing It Day Camp with her husband, Hobie, in Lafayette 35 years ago.
The Woodses have watched the camp grow from about a dozen kids from just down the street to more than 200 from across the Bay Area last summer. With horseback riding, swimming and canoeing, Roughing It is a traditional and all-outdoor coed day camp headquartered at the Lafayette Reservoir.
The Woodses remember a time when other kids would be fishing and camping by themselves at the reservoir. Those days are gone.
"Nowadays, there are a lot more of what we call helicopter parents. They're hovering over their kids trying to make everything perfect. But kids don't learn from only having successes," says Ann Woods, who remembers when parents would drop their kids off then head for tennis and two-martini lunches before even thinking of checking in.
While the Woodses try to emphasize a child's need to work on being independent, they also embrace the technology to allow parents to keep in communication. That means photos that usually didn't show up until Christmas are on the Web site by the end of the week. Trail guides use Nextel walkie-talkies, and the emergency cell phone ringers are never on silent.
It also means that the cool stoner dude who was a counselor at your summer camp back in the '70s probably wouldn't be able to get the same gig today. That is, at an accredited camp.
"Parents often assume that all summer camps are licensed to run their business and are monitored for safety in some way," says David Hughes, who, with his brother Jeremy, started Camp Doodles in Mill Valley six years ago after they became frustrated as counselors dealing with the safety shortcomings at another public camp operation. "I know from personal experience if there is no system, if no one is watching, then the attitude is 'Who cares?' "
The owners of Camp Doodles swear they care.
To prove it, they (along with Roughing It and all the other camps mentioned in this story) are among only 25 percent of American summer camps that voluntarily applied for and passed the camp association's rigid accreditation process.
In order to be licensed by the association, each camp must meet as many as 300 health and safety standards that go "way above and beyond most state regulations," MacMunn says.
"That means we have to make sure fingerprints of all employees are verified for background checks, food is stored at proper temperatures, bathroom facilities are inspected," says Hughes, whose field-trip safety checklist for Camp Doodles is long enough to rival "War and Peace." "You name it, we'll have thought of it. And we have a license to prove it."
Although the accreditation percentage is still relatively low, the level of professionalism in camps is on the rise, according to Don Whipple, who runs Camp Unique out of Portola Valley.
"It used to be, if you were a kid and wanted to have fun, you ran home from school, dropped your books, and went out and played," says Whipple, who also runs rustic overnight camps in the Lake Tahoe area as well as day play in the South Bay. "But now there's more of a fear factor. Who else will be there? Is the park safe? Can I reach my child?"
Camps are increasingly aware that in order to stay in business and build a good reputation, they have to answer those questions for parents quickly. To comply, most accredited camps hire counselors who have backgrounds in children's education or psychology and who really want to be there for the right reasons.
Getting to watch a child's confidence grow is the reason Camp Doodles counselor Veronica Cowen does what she does.
"One year we had this little girl about 6 years old who was extremely shy," Cowen says. "She had been seeing a speech therapist and was really self-conscious about it. After a little bit of playing, a little bit of art and a little time, she was up on a stage doing skits and singing songs. Her enunciation was 100 times better by the end of the summer, and her speech therapist said they had never seen so much growth in such a short period of time."
Similar results were found over at Quest Camp in Danville, where Robert Field hosts a day camp specifically for children with low self-esteem and problems with social skills.
"We work with kids who are especially anxious and have little confidence. We help the kid who quits playing a game because they hate losing, for example," says Field, who will be celebrating Quest Camp's 17th summer this year. "We had three middle-school-age kids with Asperger's whose parents say they just don't relate socially and never had any friends at school. After a few summers together at camp, they all three got together and started to hang out on their own. What'd they do? They worked together on building a nuclear submarine, of course. Sounds unusual, but they found a way to relate and do something they enjoy."
Tech Camp
"First of all, it's not a geek camp," says Karen Thurm, vice president of iD Tech Camps -- the Silicon Valley computer and technology summer camp going on its ninth year. "People make the mistake of thinking their child wouldn't be interested in this type of camp. But the fact is we make it fun. And all kids love to have fun."
With several locations, including Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz, iD Tech Camps offer kids courses in everything from Web site building to 3-D animation to plain old playing Frisbee and soccer in the sun.
"All the kids come away from our camp with a new technological skill," says Thurm, who emphasized that the campers get to use the most advanced and updated software and hardware programs from nearby companies like Apple and Google. "It's not like they come in and play video games. But they might come in and make their own video games. These kids end up going back to regular schools mentoring other children and sometimes even teachers on technology. That can't help but blossom a child's self-esteem."
While specialty camps like iD Tech Camp can go all out with computers and technology, traditional camps like Prime Time Kids' Camp in Burlingame are trying to find a balance.
"We in the camp industry call this new generation the Millennials," says Prime Time's director Guillermo Macalpin, who just returned from a national camp association conference in Texas that focused on the issue. "We understand that these are some very computer and technologically savvy kids. They have that need to be text messaging and building their MySpace pages. Keeping up with them can be a challenge."
By adding cool science experiments, videotaping drama classes or having a former San Francisco Giant come by for tips in the batting cage, summer camps like Prime Time are learning to keep up with the Millennials.
"It doesn't matter what century it is, the bottom line is that kids just want to have fun."
E-mail Delfin Vigil at dvigil@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page PK - 18 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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