What Happens at Summer Camp When It's Not Summer?
“Working full-time at summer camp sounds fun! But what do you do the rest of the year?”
We get it, the May-August months are the best part of the year for the summer camp world, so it makes sense that some people might assume we just spend the rest of our time waiting for camp to start up again. But that’s far from the truth! Today on the blog, we’re talking about what happens at summer camp when it’s not summer.
What do we do after camp ends? How do we prepare for the next season? What happens to the horses and chickens? And where’s the best sledding hill?
Cleanup & Projects
The “off-season” is a bit of a mis-nomer, since the work around camp doesn’t end when the sessions do. Instead, this is the best time for our new projects and renovations! For example, last year a big off-season project was renovating the swim docks.
We’re grateful to have such a skillful and dedicated facilities team managing all the buildings, trails, and activity areas around camp, to ensure they’re in top shape once campers arrive. In addition to regular preventative maintenance, they are also able to work on larger repairs like grading the gravel road or replacing screens in all the cabin windows.
While there are a few of these large scale projects and fun new additions happening around camp in the Fall, this is also the time for general cleaning and organizing activity areas post-summer. Our program team is focused on going through the activities, taking inventory, and making plans to repair or replace any gear or tools that need updating. This includes anything from basketballs at the gym or paintbrushes at arts and crafts, to larger items like mountain bikes or blacksmithing forges.
Travel & Reunions
This mountain is a beautiful place, but we know it’s the people that make camp what it is. That’s why a huge part of what we do in the “off-season” is connect with camp families, alumni, and staff!
While plenty of work is being done here at camp property, we also head down the mountain for our annual Movie Shows & Camp Reunions. These are events hosted by camp families in dozens of cities, where interested families, new and returning camp families, counselors, and alumni are all invited. We watch the camp movie, talk about what it’s like to spend the summer at Falling Creek, reconnect with friends, and meet new ones.
This year, Yates is traveling to cities in 11 different states over 4 weeks, and we’re excited to reveal our new camp movie!
These Movie Shows & Camp Reunions will be kicking off soon on October 14th in Richmond, Virginia, but you can see the full travel calendar here on our website.
Staff Recruitment & Training
Speaking of people, our seasonal staff team is crucial to each summer! Every year we hire over 140 camp counselors, kitchen staff, and medical staff. The majority of this team is made up of camp counselors who are current college students. To meet them, our Staff Development team visits college campuses and universities all over the southeast.
To see what schools we’re visiting next, you can check out the college tours page on our staff website. Check back often, as we will be adding more Fall ’24 and Spring ’25 travel dates soon!
Falling Creek exists to shepherd the journey of personal growth through love and adventure. Our goal leading up to each summer is to find outstanding young people who share this mission and are excited about working at camp. It takes the whole “off-season” to meet, interview, and train our summer staff team, and by the time our first Father/Son Weekend groups arrive in May, we can’t wait to introduce them to you!
We also have a separate blog and newsletter just for camp counselor updates, called the “Staff Huddle”! This gets emailed out, but in case you missed it, you can always read it on our staff website blog: teamfallingcreek.com/blog
Planning & Continuing Education
Staff training for our summer counselors takes place in May, but the “off-season” is a great time for directors to plan programming and participate in continuing education opportunities.
Our program team uses these months to dream up all the events that happen in the summer. Think of the elaborate all-camp-games, the fun adventure trip calendars, the creative evening programs, the different theme days, holiday celebrations, and the flow of each session. We also They plan as much of the logistics ahead of time so that when the summer gets here, we can put the ideas into reality and enjoy the fun together.
Our culinary team spends all year planning the menus, communicating with food vendors to make sure we will have ingredients, preparing the kitchen, and hiring staff. Lots of planning goes into feeding nearly 500 people 3 times a day!
Another example is long-term planning about how to make the overall camp experience better. One way we think about this is by participating in the Camp Directors and Owners Association (CODA) Fall Tour, which Yates, Marisa, and Frank took part in. This is a conference for fellow camp directors to share knowledge and ideas, while touring several great summer camps. CODA’s mission is to “help forward-thinking camp directors discuss and share best business practices with the goal of running camp more effectively and efficiently.”
This year’s tour was held in Alabama, where they visited the girls’ camps of Camp Desoto, Camp Skyline, Camp Woodmont, and Riverview Camp, as well as the boys’ camps of Camp Laney and Alpine Camp, and co-ed Winshape Camps. We are grateful for the hospitality and generosity of all the camps who hosted tours and shared their knowledge with the camp community!
We are also able to use this time of year to take classes, such as Wilderness First Responder or First Aid training, making sure we stay up to date on relevant certifications and prepare for a safe summer.
Life On The Mountain
Since full-time camp directors live either here on the mountain or nearby, the “off-season” is also the time when we can give back to our Western North Carolina community.
Sometimes we do this through our “Adopt-A-Highway” road cleanup events. Falling Creek has adopted a stretch of Green River Road that leads to camp’s entrance.
In September we were also honored to host the staff retreat for the St. Gerard House, a local non-profit organization in Hendersonville, North Carolina whose mission is “to help individuals with autism and their families experience more joy and achieve meaningful life outcomes by providing evidence-based therapies, innovative programs, and continuous advocacy.”
The horses and chickens live at camp year-round, and the horses enjoy having a leisurely time rotating between several of camp’s pastures, to ensure they always have plenty of fresh grass.
What about when it snows? During the colder months, the water is turned off in all the buildings around camp so that pipes don’t freeze. But everyone gets excited if snow comes to the mountain! It’s up for debate, but the best sledding hill is said to be the steep grassy hill in the lower pasture by the barn - you can zoom down from the circle of rocks by the upper riding ring, all the way to the barn gate!
As you can see, a lot happens at camp, even when it’s not summer! From maintenance and cleaning, to travel and staff training, to planning and volunteering, there’s plenty to do to prepare for the summer. The 2025 summer countdown has already begun, and we can’t wait to share this mountain with you again soon!
