Since 1916, Keystone Camp has encouraged and supported girls to become strong individuals. Teaching Keystone campers life-long skills and values in a fun and nurturing environment is the hallmark of the Keystone Camp experience. Keystone Camp for Girls strives to develop the total girl on an individual basis, offering excellent programs in horsemanship, daily horseback riding, tennis, land sports, water sports on two lakes, gymnastics, arts and crafts, dramatics, rock climbing and hiking in Pisgah National Forest.

Keystone Camp was established in the summer of 1916 by Miss Florence Ellis and Miss Fannie Holt, who brought a group of girls from Jacksonville, FL to Western North Carolina. By 1919, Keystone Camp found its permanent home on the current site in Brevard, North Carolina. Unfortunately, Florence Ellis died at an early age in 1926, but Fannie Holt continued to run Keystone until 1942. At that time, Catherine Ellis Ives, Florence’s niece, purchased Keystone from Fannie Holt and remained the director until 1961.

Catherine’s son, William (Bill) Maner Ives, assumed the position of director and ran the camp from 1961 until 1984. The current director, Page Ives Lemel, is Bill’s daughter and Florence Ellis’s great great niece.

Page became the fourth generation director in 1984 after her graduation from Duke University. Page grew up at Keystone and spent her summers as a camper, counselor, and Head Counselor before taking over the Director’s position. Her love of Keystone is contagious. Keystone is the oldest private summer camp still in existence in the Southeast.

If you are considering sending your daughter to camp, visit the Keystone Camp website for even more great information.

Have a great summer!

Hey, Camp Preppers!

At Everything Summer Camp we like to think that we do a pretty good job at making things as convenient as possible for you and your summer camp prepping. Well, now purchasing your camp gear from us is even easier than it was before!

Today I want to tell you about PayPal, new to our Web site, now you can use this payment method when you shop on our site. PayPal is a safe, secure, instant, and reusable, service that allows you to make payments and other money transfers through the World Wide Web. It’s perfectly safe and you don’t need to carry another plastic card around with you in order to use it.

Near the end of 2002, PayPal became a subsidiary owned completely by eBay. PayPal is simple enough as it works as an acquirer, performing processing for your payments that are going to online vendors as well as auction sites and other commercial users. Online money transfers are certainly a safe alternative to paying with paper money.

To prove its absolute safety and recognition, PayPal has been expanding broadly. They began with corporate headquarters in San Jose, California. They now work on a worldwide basis. The company now has major operations in five separate locations across the United States as well as locations in India, Ireland, Germany, Israel.

PayPal continues expanding today, offering online payment methods to online shoppers in more and more countries so that little kids just like you on the other side of the world can buy a camp trunk from Everything Summer Camp through PayPal so they can go to summer camp too.

Aren’t these amazing times that we live in? Let Everything Summer Camp make your camp planning easier. Let PayPal make your payment easy. Thanks for reading! Until next time, Camp Preppers!

- John

Hey, all of you O2 Cool Camp Fans!

There’s really no way around it; you’re going to get hot during your summer camp stay. If you’re looking for a fun, easy way to stay cool this summer, then you’re in luck. You can find a great number of easy and breezy fans at Everything Summer Camp!

However, none of them are quite so cool as these fans from O2 Cool: the Funky Flexi Fan, the Squeeze Breeze Water Misting Fan, and the 5” Desktop Fan.

First, you’ll want to check out the Funky Flexi Fan. Bend, turn, snake, or loop it to get the perfect fanning angle you need to stay cool from this truly funky and flexible fan. It’s small, portable, and more than safe with its funky foam blades. Use in the car, at the beach, or on your bunk at night, your funky friend will be convenient to clip on something in your surroundings. Batteries are included in our Funky Flexi Fan.

Next up is the Squeeze Breeze. Give this handheld, Water Misting Fan a squeeze for a refreshing blast of cool, cool H2O! Adding a splash to an enjoyable summer breeze will really keep you comfortable on those summer camp scorchers. Just squeeze to mist yourself or give your camp buddies a playful squirt. Batteries included.

If you’re looking for something a little more traditional, the 5” Desktop Fan will keep a streaming airflow in your cabin or tent when you need to keep cool on a hot camp night. The O2 Cool Desktop Fan is a wonderful companion that’ll sit on just about any horizontal surface. Set your fan on a desk, a chair, or even on the ground. 55 hours of battery life are included in these handy fans.

Enjoy the breeze, summer campers! Until next time.

Hey, Blog Buddies!

Today I’d like to tell you about a guy who mostly remains behind the scenes. But, boy is he essential to Everything Summer Camp running smoothly on a day-to-day basis—he’s our Operations Manager, Brian. Operations Manager is his technical title, but really he gets his hands in everything.

Brian oversees every single order that you, our customer, place. From the time your order comes into our system, to the time we ship it out the door, Brian is guiding it the whole way.

As our Operations Manager, he oversees our Camp Trunk Production, our Graphics Department, the Call Center, and the Shipping Department. Aside from that, Brian also handles all of Everything Summer Camp’s general office paperwork, paying the company bills, doing payroll, and so on.

It’s a lot to handle. But then, that’s also his favorite part about his job. He thrives on the diversity that his job hands him. He’s been working here for the last eight years in which his job has changed a lot. Not that his position changed so much as it just continues to evolve. From paying the bills to developing production procedures, Brian’s job always offers him diversity.

Aside from what his position entails, Brian is also the IT guy around here. Since he’s probably the only one at Everything Summer Camp who can set up a closed-circuit network between two locations, he’s our IT guy by default. You can tell just by looking around his office that he knows computers; he’s got wires coming out of the ceiling and computer chips sitting out in a shoebox.

Brian has no doubt that an old job of his at a sporting goods store gave him a good background in sales and office management that has helped him a long way in his current position.

“I love my job,” says Brian.

Until next time, Campers.

- John

Hey, Camp Enthusiasts!

For today’s blog post I want to tell you about a very courageous company with whom Everything Summer Camp is more than happy to be working—and that company is CamelBak. What’s so brave about CamelBak? Just keep reading to discover the history that led to the success of this great company.

One might think that in our modern times, a company has next to no chance of success when it’s based on one of the most basic of human needs such as thirst. But thanks to a bicyclist named Michael Eidson and the Hotter ‘N Hell 100 biking competition that he raced in in 1988, he brought a semi-simple, yet brilliant idea to the hands of many.

The Hotter ‘N Hell 100 is indeed a hundred mile road race in the scorcher southern summer of Witchita Falls, Texas. To make it through this race, you’ve got to have water! And there are only a few different opportunities along the way to refill your water bottle.

Michael Eidson had enough forethought to fill up an IV bag with his drinking water which he then slipped into a tube sock. He then stuffed this apparatus in the back of his racing jersey. He put the thin IV tube over his shoulder and clamped it with a clothespin.

Pretty smart, huh?

Well, he didn’t look too cool and got laughed at by the other racers. But they all had to fumble around with their water bottles during the race. And more importantly, Michael Eidson had made hands-free hydration a simple possibility.

Once CamelBak developed the hydration pack, another competitive cyclist named Jeff Wemmer was so impressed with Michael Eidson’s product that he started bringing packs along with him to races so he could sell them to other cyclists. Eventually CamelBak hired Jeff and then, in 1993, sent him off on a road trip visiting every bike shop from Florida to California.

They were tough times for the company and for a while, every day, Jeff was bringing in just enough profit to continue opening CamelBak’s doors the next day.

It’s simply amazing to have turned an IV bag in a tube sock into quality hydration packs, but to then turn that into a successful company—that’s awesome. We’re proud at Everything Summer Camp to work alongside a company like CamelBak.

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans! Until next time.

- John