The Echo Experience Home Away From Home
Comfortable. That’s how we want all our campers to feel, and everything about our community is designed with that word in mind.
We started by constructing a community just for kids, a place:
Comfortable. That’s how we want all our campers to feel, and everything about our community is designed with that word in mind.
We started by constructing a community just for kids, a place:
We love the idea that you don’t have to come to camp with a friend, because at camp you make new friends right away. Even before the first bus ride to camp, there are opportunities for first-time campers to get to know one another and to visit camp. Our counselors are specially trained to help new campers feel like part of the group. And chances are, you’re not the only new camper in your cabin!
When you arrive, you’ll be placed in a cabin based on your interests – what you like and dislike. The other 7-11 campers will have many of the same hobbies that you do! After a whole summer of playing and living together, many of your cabin-mates will be your friends, and some of them will be your best friends for life.
When you come to camp, you enter a tease-free zone. Counselors are specifically trained to identify situations that go against our policies of tolerance and acceptance. We want Camp Echo to be an oasis of personal safety, and we have zero tolerance for behaviors that disrespect anyone.
You’ll also be excited to come to Echo because camp is like a clean slate. At camp, you have the freedom to be whomever you choose – you can even be completely different than the person you were at school!
During your first few days at camp, you, your cabin-mates, and your counselors will create a list of rules that you all agree to follow during the summer. This Code of Living is a very important part of how we live together and share responsibility in our community. It will be posted in your cabin as a reminder of the rules everyone agreed to.
We keep mentioning “safety nets” – what the heck do we mean? Well, a safety net at camp can be the training that a particular staff member receives – like the ropes course guy who learns to put on a harness the right way. Or it can be a rule – like we always wear helmets to horseback riding and sneakers with socks to athletics. But it can also be about people – like making sure that our counselors know what bullying looks like or showing campers how to encourage one another during something that’s really hard.
In addition, we have someone whose job it is to be your very own physical and emotional safety net; even though everyone at camp is trained to look out for you and ensure you feel safe and comfortable, this special person will spend their whole day with you (well, almost, except for a couple of hours) – this is your Cabin Counselor. Each cabin group has at least one staff member whose whole job is to do nothing but go to different activities with the campers and make sure they have a fun safe time. (Younger campers will have two dedicated Cabin Counselors because we recognize their increased needs.)
Camp should be a community that parallels life. We make every effort to ensure an optimal combination of “all-boy”/ “all-girl” and well supervised co-ed time. The combination of single-sex and co-ed time helps build new friends, new skills and new confidences.
In the real co-ed world, our society tends to stereotype girl and boy behaviors and expectations. In our carefully constructed community, we try to nurture the stronger side of girls and the softer side of boys. We do this with very specific role modeling, and we give opportunities for girls to use their voices and for boys to tap into their feelings.