Overview 

Camp Korey is SeriousFun summer-camp located in Mount Vernon, Washington. It provides young-people with life-altering medical conditions a space to bond with others with shared experiences while engaging in accessible camp activities. As a seasonal activity team staff member during the summer of 2024, I supported the creation and facilitation of daily programming which included the climbing wall, archery, open gym, rotating crafts, and all camp activities such as nightly campfires. I also supported in cabins, helping my campers with activities of daily living and cultivating a joyful and welcoming space. This position challenged me to create engaging activities that are accessible for a diverse range of campers with access needs all under resource and time constraints. In supporting campers with activities of daily living, I started to recognize care as a liberatory act and found cultivating interdependence as a way to support my campers in building confidence around advocating for their needs.

 

Personal Importance

 In being a certified silly goose for the entire summer, I learned the importance of mirroring others communication practices as a way to quickly build a genuine connection. I worked with many non-speaking campers throughout the summer who each had their own unique way of sharing their thoughts and ideas with others. One of the campers I connect the most with loved fart noises and high fives, so by the end of our week together my fart noises were top tier. While I happily jumped into making fart noises, I found that some of the short-term volunteers were hesitant to engage with non-speaking campers or would just talk at them without providing space for the camper to join the conversation. Realizing the impact of my willingness to communicate in non-normative ways led me to realize the importance of engaging in non-normative forms of communication and not privileging one form of communication over another. Through doctoral studies and my future career, I intend to work with autistic individuals with one of my main research interests being how different forms of communication are perceived by multiple parties present. It has been beautiful to witness how my revelations on communication from camp have made me a better researcher and communicator within my daily life.

 

Tasks Accomplished

• Hosted Campfires – I acted as the MC for our welcome campfires, talent shows, and closing campfires introducing the acts and ensuring that programming stayed on schedule

• Created and Facilitated All Camp Activities – I organize and set-up weekly themed events for all of our campers to engage in. This involved selecting activities that were appropriate for campers of varying ages (6-18) with a variety of access needs.

• Facilitated Daily Programming – I led campers through daily activities including rock wall, archery, arts and crafts, and more. During these activities I assured that campers were having fun while also reflecting on learning goals and being safe. I also created weekly rotating activities for campers to engage with in the arts & crafts area and garden.

• Supported Cabin Life – I helped campers with activities of daily living including dressing, bathing, and toileting. 

 

During my sunny summer of camp songs and face paint, I developed a range of leadership competencies including Scope of Competence, Resiliency, Inclusion, Listening, Idea Generation, Helping Others, and Planning.

 

Scope of Competence 

While Camp Korey is a magical place, my coworkers and I struggled during our time there due to understaffing and inconsistent leadership support which resulted in programming running behind schedule and an exhausted team. After talking with leadership about my concerns and seeing no action taken due to internal organization struggles, I was forced to reflect on my role as a seasonal staff member and identify my true scope of competence in this role. Identifying what I had the capacity to change in this situation allowed me to both create space for my frustration and focus on tasks within my scope of competence. This involved me intentionally using downtime created by disorganized programming to create magical moments and spaces for connection amongst my campers. While this experience introduced me to the significance of this competency, clearly identifying my scope of competence is something I need to continue working on. In my future roles I intend to be more intentional about understanding the job description and clarifying expectations early on.

 

Resiliency

While I knew that this role would be physically demanding, I didn’t realize how emotionally tiring and physically demanding activities each day with campers would be. Belaying children for hours then pivoting to hosting a campfire moments later was truly exhausting and supporting in the cabins meant fragmented sleep. Due to my exhaustion and the lack of support from leadership, there was a point throughout the summer where I seriously thought about quitting before the summer camp season ended. I’m usually someone who sticks with things no matter how challenging the situation which makes this a challenging to consider. After sleeping for 15 hours straight following a particularly challenging week at camp, I decided that I wanted to stay but further commit to prioritizing rest during my time off. In deciding to stay I reflected on why I took on this role, which was to give these kiddos the same amazing camp experiences that I’ve had. This experience taught me the true meaning of resiliency, highlighting my cognition of this leadership competency, and which wasn’t just pushing through a tough situation but instead making space for my frustrations and grounding myself in my why.

 

Inclusion 

It was when one of my campers broke down crying on their last night of camp because they didn’t want to leave that I felt like I really understood the true power of inclusion and the significance of centering this competency in my leadership. At Camp Korey disability and different ways of completing daily activities are completely normalized. Seeing that the intentional choices my coworkers and I made fostered an environment where my camper felt fully accepted, seen, and included was a beautiful moment. Behind the scenes the way we cultivated inclusion for our campers was ensuring inclusion amongst ourselves as staff members; this involved making sure as a cabin we were a united front around division of roles and responsibilities while also working as a team to address challenging behaviors when they arose. As someone who is very self-sufficient and enjoys completing my work independently, from this experience I learned about the importance of working collaboratively even when you don’t need help. Asking others for support and feedback is a way to build a sense of trust and belonging amongst a team and I plan to continue being intentional about this in my future positions.

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Listening 

While I’ve always prided myself in being a good listener, I didn’t realize the situational nature of my skills and how those I was a good listener for were usually people who communicated like me. While at camp I worked with a diverse group of kiddos, some of which were non-speaking or had speech differences. During the first week of campers, the neurological conditions week, most of my campers had speech differences which required me to listen more intentionally and repeat back what I heard to ensure I understood them. I also saw from my camper’s perspective how challenging it is to not be understood and the importance of showing a dedication to actively listening even if I was unable to fully comprehend the conversation - for me this involved apologizing when I asked them to repeat themselves putting the onus on me and my listening abilities not their speech. Working with kiddos who I cared deeply about motivated me to engage deeper with the leadership competency of listening not just at camp, but in my daily life after returning home. I found focusing on my ability to understand instead of the person I’m conversing with’s ability to present information in a way that I understand to be helpful in my daily life and role as a Peer Advisor for UW’s Undergraduate Academic Advising.

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Idea Generation 

Within this role I had the opportunity to create all-camp activities which were two hours during the camp week where campers of all ages came together to engage in a single shared experience. Creating these activities required intentional idea generation that accounted for campers’ general interests, available resources, and physical needs. At Camp Korey, accessibility was essential and at the forefront of activity creation. If an activity could not be adapted so that every camper could participate, it would not be used. Starting from the constraints of available resources and camper’s access needs, I would then move to selecting an overarching theme such as Mario Party or Inside Out. From there, idea generation became critical in identifying and selecting station-based activities that would engage campers with a wide range of interests and comfort levels. Each all-camp activity typically included five to six stations, with a balance between movement-based activities, such as bowling, and creative options, like bracelet making. This structure ensured that campers could engage in ways that felt preferred and found enjoyable. Through this role, I developed a stronger motivation to intentionally practice idea generation as a leadership competency. Prior to this position, I often moved forward with my first idea and did not intentionally dedicate time towards idea generation; however this role challenged me to slow down and explore a wider range of possibilities prior to moving forward. In future roles, I hope to continue working on collaborative idea generation by trying to intentionally create spaces where others can contribute their ideas as well.

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Helping Others

One of the most meaningful aspects of being a summer staff member at Camp Korey was working alongside colleagues who were also deeply committed to helping others. Throughout the joy filled and hectic summer, I frequently stepped in to support coworkers when I had the capacity, even when those tasks fell outside my primary role as an activity counselor. I often stepped in to support cabins, jumping in to help with morning and evening routines. My conversations with coworkers reinforced the significance  of this leadership competency and highlighted how helping others contributes to team morale and trust. During one particularly stressful week for a coworker, I stepped in to provide additional cabin support. At the end of the week, they expressed deep gratitude, sharing that my support helped reduce their work-related stress while they were managing other personal challenges. Being able to show care and support for a colleague as a human being, not just a coworker, was especially meaningful to me. Through this experience, I also learned that effective helping requires a clear understanding of the task at hand. There were moments during the summer, and in other roles, where my attempts to help unintentionally made someone’s job more difficult. To address this, I am actively working on clarifying what kind of support is needed before stepping in. This reflection has strengthened my understanding of how to offer help in ways that are genuinely useful and respectful.

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Planing

With busy days running from nearly 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., there was limited time to transition activity spaces for the following day or to even mid-day for evening programming. Over time, I learned that creating a clear plan for activity setup and teardown before the day began was essential. Planning ahead allowed me to use my evenings prep time more efficiently which helped ensure I got much needed rest. Throughout the summer, my performance of this leadership competency improved significantly as I learned to resist jumping directly into tasks and instead take the time to develop a course of action. Although creating a plan requires an initial investment of time and energy, I found that it ultimately led to quicker task completion and reduced stress. While I have demonstrated this competency most clearly in roles involving complex tasks or time constraints, I recognize the importance of continuing to apply planning skills in other contexts. Moving forward, I hope to further develop this competency by incorporating collaboration and engaging others in the planning process to address challenges more effectively.

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Lessons Learned & Future Goals 

Through my summer at Camp Korey, I grew in my ability to identify my role in different spaces and continue to be resilient even in challenging environments. While it was a completely different context, these lessons were pivotal when I experienced the debilitating symptoms of a chronic illness during my fourth-year at the UW. When my experience of my body felt foreign to me, I was able to ground myself in what I had control of which in this instance was mindset and ability to seek out low energy activities that brought me joy such as listening to music or watching my favorite television shows. My experiences with chronic illness also forced me to reflect on what resilience is and sometimes resilience is taking a step back when your body or mind requires this. With my new understanding of resiliency and scope of competence, I feel better prepared to work within the medical system understanding how to maintain balance and create a positive impact within dysfunctional systems as I intend to work within the healthcare field.