By Megha Lakha
“The days felt longer than I thought,” sophomore Isabelle Cheroff said about her arduous job at Lovett this summer. Isabelle and I both worked as Lovett camp counselors, Isabelle for five weeks (three more weeks than this writer put in…).
Working at Lovett was fun, but it did present some obstacles. Isabelle was a natural. Me? Not so much, but that’s beside the point. I sat down with Isabelle in the community center during lunch to talk to her about her experience.
Meeting new people was a big part of the camp experience for Isabelle. She “made good friendships with them.” Isabelle said she would work at Lovett again because of the fun she had this summer.
As for challenges, “We didn’t have a playground because it was under construction,” she said, “so we had to come up with other ways to entertain the kids inside and outside.” Instead of using the playground, Isabelle and the other camp counselors had the kids play fun games on the middle school’s front lawn.
Most of the campers were ages 5 to 11. Some of the younger kids had temper tantrums during the camp days, so Isabelle had no choice but to learn how to handle that. What a trooper! Isabelle said that, as a result, the campers taught her how to be more patient. And she learned how a real job works because the counselors got “actual paychecks.” She’s a working woman.
It did help to have some actual adults around, like Ms. Sherri, the camp coordinator, who was “very much of a leader and had every day planned out,” according to Isabelle. Camp days were filled with crafts, games, swim time, science experiments, dress-ups, and field trips. (Thankfully, this took a huge load off the counselors!)
The field trips, which Isabelle noted were “chaotic,” happened once a week. They traveled to locations such as the Georgia Aquarium or Sparkles, the roller skating rink. Isabelle thought back to her first week of camp and explained that she and a few other counselors had to stay back from the field trip because “there were too many kids on the bus leaving no room for counselors.” But Isabelle was able to go on the rest of the camp field trips.
Thinking about becoming a camp counselor? Here are some of the tasks Isabelle had to complete on a daily basis: opening car doors for the campers during carpool, supervising group activities, setting up games, swimming with the campers, and keeping track of the kids.
Isabelle said the crucial parts of the job were to make sure all of the campers were “safe and having a good time.” Camp days were pretty long, lasting from 9 to 3, so as you can imagine Isabelle was exhausted when she left camp. “I would just come home and flop onto my bed.”
Isabelle got ‘Counselor of the Week’ during the first week of camp, earning her praise…and candy. The title truly embodied what kind of counselor she was—an exceptional one. Isabelle is enjoying the sophomore year so far and has already run into several kids from the camps.
