Summer Camp Assistant–Job Description

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Summer Camp Assistant

A lot of young adults have a lot of spare time during the summer. If you don’t know what to do during the hot months of July and August, this job might be right for you. The Brunecker Summer Camp was established to offer an entertainment opportunity for children. There are kids aged from 5 to 14 years old and from many different backgrounds. There are various tasks you can have within the summer camp. Entertaining and feeding 150 children is a challenge. Therefore, this job is very versatile; each new day surprises you with a new task.

The head of the camp is Sarah. She is a nice, young and approachable women. She can be your best friend and worst enemy at the same time. She decides which tasks you will be doing during each week. If you are assigned to a group of children, it is probably going to be with the same group for the whole week. This gives you the possibility to bond with your fosterlings.

The main roles an assistant are:

·      Entertainer

·      Waiter

·      Judge

I’ll describe these by explaining how each task influences the job.

Entertainer

The parents drop of their children between 8 and 9am. The youngsters come with only one purpose: to have fun. Therefore, there is a whole program of different games and activities set up for the kids. It includes everything from playing dodgeball to drawing and painting on walls. Every morning the children can select what they want to be involved in during the day. All of this is compressed within a tight schedule to avoid boredom. The goal is that the kids change activities every 90 minutes.

Organizing such an activity schedule is harder than it might seem. At first you need to come up with original activities. Some children come to the camp six weeks in a row and they shouldn’t do the same thing over and over again. Then you need to figure out how to get the children and all the objects where they are supposed to be. For example, twice a week we bring the kids into the woods where they can play within a designated area. We set up many different workshops within this zone. As you can imagine we need a lot of material to do so. Thus, there must be some assistants who are the designated drudges for the day. They have to walk the same way a couple of times to bring all the material where it needs to be.

Integration is a central part of the job. The goal is that everybody has fun. We have to motivate all the kids to participate in our activities. In addition, many kids recently immigrated or have special needs. We help them to find friends and to boost their self-confidence. This is the most rewarding part of the job, because you can see that you make a difference.

Waiter

If you are busy playing, soon or later you are going to get hungry. Everybody eats together in the “dining hall” at noon. In addition, you can get a morning and a mid afternoon snack. The motto goes “everybody has to eat enough.” We take this motto very seriously; even the pickiest eater should get something. Usually, there is a main dish, an alternative option as well as options for different dietary restrictions.

The “dining hall” was originally built as a restaurant. The layout of it does not allow a buffet style lunch. That is why the assistants have to bring the food to their fosterlings. As a result, you have all the duties a real waiter has as well. You have to set the tables for 150 kids, you have to bring them food and drinks, and you have to clean up the mess afterwards. Everybody agrees that this is the most stressful task. People who perform this task get to take a nice break after lunch as a compensation.

As I mentioned earlier, there are the children get to eat snacks as well. Usually the snacks are fruits or yogurt to promote a healthy diet. Once a week everybody gets a piece of bread with Nutella. On these days all kids go crazy because they can’t have enough of it. Also preparing all the snacks for the children is considered demanding. You have to pay attention that some children don’t take everything.

Judge

If there are 150 kids playing around in a small area, you can be certain that trouble is inevitable. Kids–exactly as adults–don’t necessarily like each other. At least once a day there is a problem to solve. You will always hear, “He did this… and she said that…” and it is on you to give a resolution. As an assistant you have to solve every conflict which comes up with only one goal in mind: It should not happen again. This can be the most challenging task in the job because you have to deal with feeling. Sometimes you get involved in a conflict yourself and you have to control your own emotions. I remember the anger I was feeling as one of the kids blew his nose into my tee-shirt on purpose.

Before we work with the children everybody gets a crash course in how to handle such situations. There are procedures we have to follow if somebody caused trouble. Whenever there is a fight, we would call out all of the children involved. Then the kids have to tell me how the other one feels about what just happened. Usually the children understand what they did wrong. This strategy usually works. Both parties realize what they did wrong and do the right thing.

For the rare cases we can give them the highest possible “punishment.” This consists in a talk with Sarah. Usually the sole threat to bring them to her is enough to impose our will. The children know that she is the big boss, and that they are in real trouble if they have to meet with her. It is very fascinating to look at her while she is in action. She studied pedagogy and she really knows what she is doing. She is able to reach out to every single child in order to press the right buttons to calm them down. I can’t even describe how she does it; it is still a mystery to me.

Readability

Flesch Reading Ease: 74.9
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 6
Passive Sentences: 0%