Best Summer Ever at Camp Harmon
Hi, my name is Lyrik Loeper and I am a student at Portland State University completing her senior capstone project. My project is centered around my work with Camp Harmon as 2019's summer camp director. The purpose of this project is to prepare myself and camp to achieve its highest potential and truly embody camp's 2019 theme: Best Summer Ever.
Camp Harmon is an overnight summer camp that serves individuals with disabilities by providing a welcoming and accessible camp experience for all. I believe in this organization because I have witnessed firsthand its ability to empower its campers and provide a safe space where people of all abilities can learn, laugh, and build friendship. I wanted to create this project around camp because I believe our campers deserve the best we can possibly give them and this project allows that to happen. |
History of Camp HarmonCamp Harmon is located in Boulder Creek, CA amidst the beautiful redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Easterseals Central California has owned and operated Camp Harmon since 1963, when two sisters from a pioneer logging family, Jessie and Mignon Harmon, charitably sold the land to Easter Seals for $1. Camp Harmon continues to be a magical place, offering camping opportunities to hundreds of people with disabilities, thanks to the donations of many generous supporters.
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EasterSeals Mission“Our mission is to provide exceptional services to ensure that all people with disabilities and their families have equal opportunities to live, learn, work and play in their communities.” |
LocationCamp Harmon
16403 Highway 9 Boulder Creek, CA Easterseals Camp Harmon features a combined lodge and dining hall, an on-site health center, 14 heated cabins, an arts and crafts center, accessible swimming pool, a golf putting green, an athletic field, gardening areas, and an animal farm. |
Project Overview
Creating a HOLISTIC TrainingJob training is an important aspect of any job, especially so for our counselors who are expected to thrive in the demanding, 24-7 work that is camp. Because of this, our counselor training is 5 full and intensive days in which counselors learn everything they need to know about how camp runs and who our campers are. Traditionally, training consisted of the required basics such as emergency procedures, HR competencies, and medical/ personal care basics for our campers. But I wanted to take the time to create a more comprehensive training that aimed to serve the emotional and psychological aspects of the job as well as the physical demands. Over the course of this project, I have worked to find and incorporate into training, activities that would help counselors find support in one another, understand their own personal strengths, and connect with what it truly means to serve our campers. I've strategically placed these activities throughout training to promote connection at the beginning, learning through the middle, and reflection at the end.
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Creating the Daily Camp scheduleIn past years, our camp staff have worked together weekly to create the schedule for the following week. This has often led to confusion among staff on what to expect for the week, as well as haphazardly planned activities. I decided to target this area of need as my main goal for this project because I feel that having a fully planned summer would allow everyone to focus more on our campers experience. In partnership with 2 other full time staff members, we worked to plan out every single day of camp, 47 days to be exact. Working in conjunction with the camp cook and program staff, we planned our each day to include all planned activities as well as what meals would be cooked for that day. Below you can see a sample schedule for a day of camp.
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Final Reflective Thoughts
Summer camp is a lot more complex than I thought! Through the course of this project I have gained a new appreciation for the individuals who work tirelessly to create a summer camp experience that appears whimsical and effortless to the outside world. The most difficult part of this journey was simply the logistical issues of communicating with the variety of full and part time staff that work for camp. During the course of this project, camp abruptly had to transition to a new Executive Director and decided to hire an Assistant Director to ease the transition. With new leadership at practically every level of camp, simply communicating what everyone expected became the hardest hurdle to overcome. Ultimately though, we were able to create new communication practices such as regularly scheduled Skype meetings, and sharing documents through Google Doc so that documents could be seen and updated in real time. I am also pleased with how our counselor training and daily schedule have come together and feel that this will make an overwhelmingly positive change in the course of camp.
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*All photos used on this page have been shared with permission from owner for use in Camp Harmon promotional material ONLY