Hey, Camp Fans!

We were delighted to see such a great response to our ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest here at Everything Summer Camp and now we’re eager to publish each one right here on the Blog! After our seven lucky winners, everyone else who submitted received a $20 gift certificate to our online store!

Today’s post is from Sarah W. who attended Bay Shore Camp and Ministries in Huron County, Michigan. Check out her submission on why camp was so great!

“Bay Shore Camp is not only a wonderful place, nestled right on the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. Every summer since I was a young child in kindergarten, I attended the age group camp. My brothers did as well. Day 1, we came in, nervous and excited rolled together. The counselors cheered for us as we walked out of the Family center, and then we met our counselors for the week. Typical camps would last around a week, filled with activity and more. My favorite parts were: learning about God, worshiping Him, and screaming praise in the Tabernacle at the top of our lungs, meeting new friends and people even though I was shy, and the zip line; eating delicious food which was prepped by the fantastic kitchen staff, and small group sessions each night before bed. Memories of laughter, and cry night (where God became very real to us and many got saved!), and the last day hugs and baptism fill my head. As a counselor, my favorite part of camp, nights lasted until early morning. Eating chocolate just to stay awake at counselor sessions. Tucking the precious kids into bed every night. Kayaking on the lake and crazy games in the pool. Pouring out my heart for the kids and to Christ kept me going, but I made lasting friendship and my friends became family. And Christ was the center of it all!”

Wonderful, Sarah! Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I’m glad you’ve had such a great camp experience throughout your youth and that the memories are still being made in your time as a counselor. Sounds like Bay Shore Camp has been a great foundation for you that has blessed you with fond relationships with other campers, yourself, and God.

If Bay Shore Camp and Ministries sounds like it could be the right place for you, check it out for yourself by clicking here. As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

We were delighted to see such a great response to our ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest here at Everything Summer Camp and now we’re eager to publish each one right here on the Blog! After our seven lucky winners, everyone else who submitted received a $20 gift certificate to our online store!

Today’s post is from Laine P., who's camp story is just as disgusting as it is hilarious. Check out this brief story from her summer stay at Camp Point Clear.

“Hi! My name is Laine and I am 13 years old. This year I went to Camp Point Clear for the 6th time. I went to camp for 3 weeks, it was so fun! Today, I am going to tell you about my White Water Rafting trip on the Ocoee River. At my camp everyone that is 12 or older can go on the trip. When we first got to the White Water Rafting place, we were given a safety briefing on what to expect on the river. This was my second time, so I wasn’t very worried about it. My group ended up being 5 of my best friends, so I was really excited. When we first got on the river, everything was fine and we were having a nice smooth ride. Then, about halfway down the river we came up on a HUGE rapid. Our guide told us to put our feet under the seat in front of us, which I did. We started down the rapid and everything was fine, then boom, the whole raft tilted on my side, water came in the raft, and my foot came out of the seat. I leaned back so far that I thought I was going to fall out! Thankfully I didn’t! After that rapid we were all much more careful to keep our feet secured in the raft! Even though I almost fell out of the raft, I had so much fun and can’t wait for next summer!”

Yikes, Laine! Thanks for sending this nail-biter for your camp story submission. Sounds like you narrowly avoided some pretty real danger. I guess you’ve learned your lesson about the wild ride of white water rafting. Glad you survived! At least this story wasn’t as stinky as yours from last year! Haha!

For everyone else, check out Camp Point Clear if you want to do some White Water Rafting. Check it out for yourself by clicking here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Your camp stories were great! I had a great time reading through them all and now I’m excited to share them with all our readers online and post each submission right here on the Blog! I’ve finished announcing our ten lucky winners who took larger prizes and we’ve now moved on to the rest of your submissions.

The following entry is from JW B. who wrote in to tell us about his camp experience at Camp Hayo-Went-Ha. Here is JW’s submission right now:

“In my camp experience this year, my favorite part was our canoe trip. I will never forget the first day. We had made it to our campsite for the night when we realized that one of our cabin mates had left a tent on his bed. It turns out that when he was packing he just completely forgot it. It ended up being a funny experience because my cabin mate who forgot it was really funny so he made up a hilarious story about how he left it and, one of the camp workers drove the tent to our site so we were all able to sleep. On the morning of our second day, we had some bit sized pancakes for breakfast. Due to they're not being enough mix for bigger pancakes, most kids were very hungry by the time lunch rolled around. When we found out that we didn’t have enough food to make a good lunch or dinner, some of our counselors went to a grocery store to buy some food and water (apparently counselors get hungry too). We had another funny like the tent story on the last day…I was canoeing with my friend from home and we saw what we thought was our landing site. Now the day before he was in a canoe with a kid who did no work whatsoever so he was SUPER sore. We were rowing 90 degrees to the right for where the current was taking us so it was pretty easy going, however there was another canoe next to us who had our two friends in it and we were looking to beat them so we started paddling as hard and as fast as we could only to realize that that wasn’t our landing site and we still had a huge up stream paddle left to go needless to say we got to shore and our bus driver brought us sandwich making materials and we had some delicious sandwiches. And this is why the canoe trip was the best part of my trip, and it wasn’t because of the canoeing, it was the memories and friends that I made.”

Wonderful, JW! Thanks for sending us this piece about your summer camp stay! Aside from hiccups like leaving a tent behind and not bringing enough food along, your canoe trip sounds amazing (And, hey! Bite-sized pancakes probably taste just as good as the regular-sized, right?). Good thing you had people to fall back on to get a tent out to you guys or make a grocery run when you ran out of food! Wish I could hear the story your cabin mate delivered about forgetting his tent, but it’s still funny without.  Glad you had such a good time, JW.  

For anybody else interested in Camp Hayo-Went-Ha, you can give it a closer look by clicking here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

We were thrilled to get the turnout that we did this year for our annual Everything Summer Camp ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest! Your camp stories were great! I had such a fun time reading through them and we’ve been having a blast publishing them here on the Blog to share them with all our readers online! We’re posting each submission with their own individual post right here on the Blog!

Since I’ve finished announcing our ten lucky winners who took larger prizes in September, I’ve moved on to the rest of your submissions. The following post is from Devon P. who wrote in to tell us about his summer stay at Camp Sloane. Check it out: 

“My name is Devon and I’ve been going to Camp Sloane YMCA for 4 years. My story is kind of unique because I’m a 3rd generation camper at Camp Sloane, my mom and uncles went and so did my grandma. My sister who also submitted her story goes to camp with me and went one year before I did. My favorite thing to do at camp is water skiing. I started water skiing 4 years ago and have done it for at least 2 weeks every year since. This year one of my biggest accomplishments was being able to get up on one ski and stay up for 3 minutes. One of my favorite things about camp is the friendships I make every year. This year my best friend at camp was Desmond and we had a lot of fun together. We had some of our activities together and hung out during our village time. My tent was also awesome and I made friends with a lot of them. My tent counselors' names were Blessing and Mario(Session 2) and Dean and Marcell(Session 3). It was cool to have them as counselors because they are all international and I learned a lot about where they come from and their cultures. I love coming back to Camp Sloane year after year because of the people and the fun that we have every day. I'm already signed up for Summer ‘23 and I’m so excited.”

Camp Sloane must be one amazing camp if it has your family going back summer after summer and generation after generation! It’s great to hear that your confidence on water skis is building throughout the years—sounds pretty brave to manage yourself on just a single ski. Well done! Along with great friendships, it sounds like you always get the most out of your summers at Camp Sloane!

For everyone else, give Camp Sloane a closer look. Check it out for yourself by clicking here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Pumpkin People!

The wait is over to find out who won our Decorated Pumpkins Contest. In fact, today's our chance to share all the great entries we received! But before anything else and any more wait, let's have a look at our winners!

First up we have Natalee C. who goes to Camp Huawni as our First Place Winner! Congratulations, Natalee! That's some tasty-looking pump-corn!

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