By Ben Lea, director
One of our favorite parts of the fall and spring is when we travel to some of our Camp Pinnacle families homes to share the camp experience with prospective families. A great part of hosting these sessions is hearing how camp has positively affected our campers and how it fits into their lives at home, long after their session has ended. Here some highlights from our travels.
Florida traditionally has had a strong tie to Camp Pinnacle, and that hasn’t changed over the years. In fact, Florida is our second-most-represented state! (Behind our home of North Carolina.) That being said, we currently have campers from almost 30 states and 12 countries. We work hard to maintain this camper diversity, and we travel all over the country to promote Camp Pinnacle’s fun atmosphere and personal growth potential.
When we traveled to the Sunshine State this fall, we heard from Michael Overbeck from Jupiter about how “amazing Chef Richard’s food is and how there is always something for you to eat,” and his feedback on what activities we should add for this summer. Michael, we’re going to increase the number of field sports for 2016!
In Palm Beach Gardens, Kelly Ferrell shared her experiences from camper choice days, and how she loved improv with counselors Kyle and Ben. We hear you loud and clear, Kelly—more creative activities will be available on choice days!
In Miami Beach, Senna and Beck Trafton talked about how much they love Off-Camp Adventures—especially whitewater rafting. Because so many of our campers have limited opportunities to experience outdoor activities outside of camp, we’ve found that our Off-Camp Adventures are an incredible way for our campers to learn resilience and reasonable risk, all while having a blast in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Rochelle Trafton was impressed with how responsible Beck and Senna were upon returning home. We hear this often after camp ends, and that makes us work even harder to improve the already-fun and wonderful camp experience for our children.
Back up in Matthews, NC, Emily Rae and Ben Kearney had the quote of the day: “Your counselors are like a big brother or sister, only nicer!” This summer will be Emily Rae’s fifth and Ben’s fourth year at Camp Pinnacle; they love camp because of “all the new and old friends” they have from each summer.
In Savannah, GA, the Chandler family sang the praises of our counselors: They’re incredibly impressed with the colleges they attend, and how they turned out to be such positive role models for their children. We strive hard to assemble the best role models that you could find in a summer camp counselor team. We are lucky to have so many Adventure Treks graduates eager to be great role models at Camp Pinnacle.
The smiles that light up our campers’ faces when they relive the camp experience back at home brings a renewed energy and glow to the leadership team at Camp Pinnacle. We are currently hiring the last few new counselors for 2016, tweaking our programming to make sure we offer something for everyone, and keeping up-to-date with the latest studies on youth development to make sure our philosophy aligns with providing your children the best possible growth experience possible. We’re constantly brainstorming on how we can make camp even better, year after year, and seeing our campers and talking to our families outside of the summer season can often provide a fresh sense of that.
We can’t wait to see you this summer!