Hey, Camp Fans!

Everything Summer Camp—we’re the home of C&N Footlockers. And while we pride ourselves on the nearly indestructible footlocker trunks we manufacture, right here out of Boyd, Wisconsin, we’re also proud to carry all of the quality products that we do from trusted brand names like Columbia, Woolrich, and Kelty. Another excellent brand you can find on our online shop is Burt’s Bees!

Burt’s Bees is the story of a man, Burt, and his bees. It’s about as simple as that. Except for the fact that Burt was no businessman, yet, along with his bees, Burt was creating a high quality product that was meant for the world to enjoy. Instead, he was selling his honey to friends and locals. After all, Burt had no idea how a simple apiarist like himself could reach the masses.

Enter Roxanne Quimby. Burt’s Bees was born when this artist from Maine, met Burt Shavitz who was tending to his beehives. They became fast friends and she was thrilled one day when Burt generously gifted her leftover beeswax from his hives for candle making. She added a few key ingredients and quickly had a sellable product.

Roxanne’s candles led to a plethora of personal care products such as the infamous Burt’s Bees Lip Balm and the Herbal Insect Repellent, both of which can be found right here. Burt’s Bees took off with wild popularity and success beyond Burt’s wildest dreams!

Featuring kid-safe, quality products that are perfect for skin care at summer camp as well as the one and only, iconic Burt himself who stars as the company logo, grab these kid-friendly and chemical-free products for your camper during their camp stay this summer. For more information on the startup of Burt’s Bees, check out the video below and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Campers!

Did you know that kids have been going to summer camp for more than a hundred years? That means there are literally millions of adults who were once summer campers just like you. Many of them have gone on to become famous folks who we all know and love. I have a great time featuring celebrities who went to summer camp—people like Drew Carey, for example!

Drew knew what summer camp was all about, alright. He isn’t actually a former camper as he never attended at an age young enough to be a camper; he did, however, spend a summer as a camp counselor at YMCA Camp Y-Noah in Akron, Ohio.

As you may have gleaned from his TV show, he lived in Old Brooklyn, a neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio with his parents and two older brothers. He may have been the youngest, but he grew up fast. He was only eight when his father died of a brain tumor.

With a dabbling interest in music as well as comedy, Drew played the cornet as well as the trumpet in the marching band of James Ford Rhodes High School. After high school, Drew went on to study at Kent State University for some time before enlisting into the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1980 where he served for six years.

In 1985 Drew was being paid to write jokes for a friend’s radio show in Cleveland. His friend suggested he go to the library to borrow books about how to write jokes. Drew to the suggestion as actual advice and did so.

His understanding of the funny bone led him to win open mic nights and he eventually became Master of Ceremonies at the Cleveland Comedy Club. Drew started performing in comedy clubs all over Cleveland and Los Angeles. After making a name for himself in stand-up, he landed a gig on the Johnny Carson Show. His performance went over so well that Johnny invited him to sit down—a rare invitation for a guest comedian.

He made his first appearance on ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ in 1994 and he had a number of small appearances in television for a year or so after that, but all the while, he was working on something much bigger on the side with his friend Bruce Helford: ‘The Drew Carey Show’.

The show was about a fictionalized version of Drew himself and how he dealt with the stresses of life and work alongside his group of childhood friends. The show was very successful and ran for nine whole seasons, airing a total of 233 episodes.

After that, Drew got involved in the comedy sports arena—hosting the improvisational comedy show ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’, which regularly featured funnymen like Colin Mockery, Wayne Brady, Ryan Stiles (who costarred in ‘The Drew Carey Show’), and a slew of other guests who would come back often in later episodes.

The show was a tremendous hit and is still in production today, though it is no longer hosted by Drew. Instead, Drew continued his hosting career on a different show—one you may have heard of before called ‘The Price is Right’…! The honor of carrying this infamous gameshow after the show’s original, legendary host, Bob Barker, is a great one.

Check out YMCA Camp Y-Noah in Akron, Ohio for yourself if you’re interested and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Camp Aficionados!

We’ve been entertained to no end with all the summer camp stories we received from roughly 30 campers for our ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest that was held at Everything Summer Camp. So we’re posting each of the entries right here on the Blog! After our seven lucky winners of larger prizes, all other entrants received a $15 gift certificate to our online store! Today’s post is from Ava R., who wrote in to tell us about her time at Camp Chi. She liked Camp Chi a lot:

“Camp Chi was amazing. The first thing I did when we got off the bus was have fun. We started with outdoor cooking then moved to horseback riding, then had delicious food and, by then, even though I felt a little homesick, Camp Chi was overcoming my fear of overnight camp with fun. After that we had an evening program which included introducing new campers (me) to songs and games. That night our whole cabin had fun playing games, doing lanyards, and other campy stuff. About twice every night our cabin would do sneak outs, which could be from tidying to coloring socks. At Camp Chi we also had specialities which could range from pottery and horseback riding to waterskiing and ziplining!!! Camp Chi had a specific schedule and it said: FUN FUN FUN!!!!!!! Kids were never sad at camp Chi because every day was something new. We had a pool party and color wars and scavenger hunts and hikes in the river. But whatever the activity was at Camp Chi it was never boring, dull or any other bad thing. It was always adventures, fun, creative, and many more good things. So if I were to give a review to a kid about how good or bad camp Chi is, one being the worst and ten being the best I would rate it: 1,000,000,000,000!!!!!!”

Ava rates Camp Chi one trillion on a scale from one to ten. She obviously loved it. You may love it yourself if it’s a good match for you. Look into Camp Chi for yourself right here and as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp People!

You know that I absolutely love talking about all the excellent summer camps that work with us at Everything Summer Camp. I do it pretty often. Having developed some great relationships with more than 250 summer camps, we like to regularly post about them. Today we’re swinging our spotlight over to the east coast to check out Adirondack Camp.

Adirondack Camp is somewhat concealed in the heavily-forested, ancient land of the Adirondack bedrock that—part peninsula—stretches out into the natural beauty of crystal clear, drinkable waters of Lake George in New York. For about one hundred years, Adirondack Camp has been providing a magical setting and a wonderful sense of community in which campers discover more about themselves then they otherwise would.

You’re sure to have a blast at Adirondack with all the Land Sports they offer like Archery, Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Softball, Tennis, Fencing, Rock Climbing, Swimming, Snorkeling, Fishing, Canoeing, and lots of other fun water activities. Adirondack offers some great wilderness experiences involving camping trips and learning about nature. And there are awesome indoor activities too like the performing arts, creative arts, culinary arts and more.

Campers live with one another according to gender and age and they’re supervised by two to four adult cabin leaders who sleep along with the campers in their large, open-air cabins. Both sides of the cabins are lined with double-decker bunks and boast lots of open space for kids to be kids as they hang out or goof around.

Complete with a dining hall, staff house, and a multitude of sites for some of the awesome indoor activities like fencing, cooking, and video art, the Adirondack campgrounds are just the special spot for your camper to take their first steps toward a stage of maturation and independence. Check out Camp Adirondack for yourself right here and, as always thanks for reading!

- Noonway!

Hey, Camp Aficionados!

So happy to hear about your time at camp, we were thrilled to get so many great submissions about campers’ camp experiences. We received about 30 submissions for our ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest that we held here at Everything Summer Camp. So we’re enthused to post each of the entries right here on the Blog! After our seven lucky winners of larger prizes, all other entrants received a $15 gift certificate to our online store! Today’s post is from Macy C., who wrote in to tell us about how she got ‘got’ by the counselors at Camp Ozark. Here’s her story:

“On the last night of camp, we were playing music in our cabin when our top staff came in. A top staff is the head of the cabin. She came in and told us, ‘Campers, your 3 counselors have done something unacceptable on camp grounds. We are going to have to fire 1 of them and you have to choose.’ We were all astonished. Would our counselors do something that bad? Why would they do this to us? Our top staff led us out of the cabin and onto the deck. They took us into the cabin 1 by 1 to take your pick. We would all try to think of what the counselors would of done. We were huddled in a circle crying. One girl said, ‘If this is a prank, I’m going to punch someone!’ I was one of the last people pulled into the cabin. On the cabin floor one of the 3 counselors said to me, ‘I’m sorry we have to do this to you. Do this very quietly. When we say so flip over this paper’ they hand put a paper in front of us, ‘Follow the instructions and then give them back to us.’ We flipped over the paper. It was our cabin award! Every camper gets a cabin award with their name and a quality that the counselors think you showed best. It was all a prank! We were all so happy. Then we laid down on our beds and got to watch the next person get pranked. The next girl screamed when she figured out. She was so mad! We all shushed her because the people outside don’t know yet. When the last girl entered the cabin, she was mad. The counselors told her, ‘The votes are tallied 4, 4, and 3. If you pick the counselor with 3 votes all of us would get bad consequences, but not fired. Choose wisely.’ She said, ‘Are you sure this isn’t a prank?’ This is the girl who said she was going to punch someone if it was fake. We all burst out laughing! None of it really happened! She was so glad, but also angry. It was such a good prank! Afterwards, our counselors gave us candy because they felt bad. This was quite an interesting way to end the last night of camp. That is my camp story.”

What an evil trick! It was probably pretty hilarious for your counselors, though! Hope you get a good laugh about it now, Macy! Get a good look at Camp Ozark for yourself if you don’t mind a camp that gets a little pranky from time to time. As always, thanks for reading!

- John