When working at a summer camp for the first time, there are many typical things that you would expect to happen like making friendship bracelets, sitting around a campfire or chanting traditional camp cheers. While all of these things do happen at Camp Starlight, there are many experiences that occur that take first time staff members for a surprise. The one thing that really surprises staff members working at Camp Starlight for the first time are all the positive life lessons they get out of their summer.
Working with kids of all different ages and coworkers from all different cultures truly provides first time staff members with a life perspective they’ve never experienced before. They learn so much about campers and other cultures and in turn learn so much about themselves. Camp Starlight is a place that helps first time staff members discover new skills, talents and passions about themselves just like the campers do. Before Camp Starlight, you might not have ever known that you have the best time working with younger kids or have a knack for coaching campers to the championship. You learn what skills you really have when working with kids and in what ways you can improve their lives for the better.
Not only do you learn new things about yourself, but you gain so many new memories and friendships unlike any other. Camp Starlight is a camp that gives you the opportunity to make a new best friend from Ireland and experience special events with your campers that create unique memories. You will never forget the thrill of Olympics, all the laughs from Friday Night Show or how sad you were to say goodbye to all your campers and friends on the last day of camp.
There are many things you will never dream you would get out of summer camp, but once you experience a summer at Camp Starlight you realize anything is really possible.
With a sea of blue dominating campus, the Happy Blue Day girl’s team made a great breakthrough for the start of Olympics. With cheers to the left and chants to the right, Happy Blue Day was full of spirit and ready to come out on top for this year’s Olympics. Each division from happy Blue Day competed against the Grand Stand Whites to rack up as many points possible. Starting the opening day with a great blue bang, the Lower Camp girls competed in a boating meet in the morning, slicing through the lake water with all the blue spirit to win. On the other side of camp, the Seniors were taking total control of the field by playing a great game of flag football and blowing out the competition for the soccer shootout. The Upper Debs put their blue hearts out onto the field during an exciting game of soccer and fought against the white team with passion on the tennis courts, serving up some serious trouble. Thrashing around in the sand, the Lower Debs smacked down in beach volleyball, bringing a fierceness so blue that the girls couldn’t be stopped. Their spirit shined brighter than any amount of glitter splattered on their faces when they battered up for softball. Taking it to the streets, the Inter girls showed off their skills for street games and practically knocked out the whites in a great blue game of knockout. Each girl played with pride for Happy Blue Day, celebrating all their accomplishments for the first day of Olympics with cheers and chants that bonded the blood of the blue team even deeper. It’s a great start for the girls in the Olympics, and the thunder of Happy Blue Day has only begun.
Counselors help campers overcome many challenges they face in sports and activities when they are at camp, it’s their goal to help campers achieve their own goals. Counselors encourage campers to keep practicing their overhand serve in beach volleyball, to continue going over their scales in piano and trying their best to get the right angle for a picture in Digital Photography. Even though counselors give a helping hand in activities that are a part of summer camp, they also help campers strive to overcome very unique challenges. A Lower Senior boy names Jason came to camp with the goal of solving a Rubik’s cube in under sixty seconds. Before camp, he had only been able to solve it in a minute and a half, but when he met his counselors, he received the moral support to overcome his challenge. Shaving forty five seconds from his fastest solving time, Jason had been motivated by his counselors to practice every day, having them time him and mix up the puzzle for him to solve. Even though the Rubik’s cube is a small puzzle, Jason’s counselors transformed the puzzle into an impressive feat for Jason to master, pushing him to not only overcome his original goal of solving under a minute, but to go further and solve it under forty five seconds. The counselors could have congratulated Jason as soon as he reached his goal but they decided to take it a step further because they saw his potential and wanted him to realize his own potential as well. The counselors motivating their camper to be their best in something unrelated to a sport’s team or an activity they are apart of for summer camp shows how they help campers succeed outside of summer camp too. This small act of encouragement portrays how at Camp Starlight all campers are pushed to see their true potential in whatever they are passionate in. 
When campers come to Camp Starlight they always brings pieces of home with them, packing pictures, stuffed animals, blankets and all sorts of objects that remind them of home and make them feel safe. Campers bring pieces of home to camp because of how much they love home and want to remember it, so when campers return home, they also want to bring pieces back that will remind them of the summer. Camp Starlight is a special place to stay for an entire summer but two months at summer camp is a shorter amount of time than ten months spent at home. To hold on to those summer memories, campers bring back handmade crafts from ceramics and woodworking to their home so they can always have a part of Starlight with them. At ceramics and woodworking, campers get to build all sorts of crafts of all different sizes that symbolize their time spent at summer camp. At woodworking, campers can create welcome home signs, key holders and even mailboxes to install in their homes and when campers make these items from scratch, it makes them even more special. The hard work put into sawing and nailing the bits of wood together makes the craft much more meaningful for the camper and the new home it will stay in. At ceramics, campers will mold bowls, cups and all sorts of sculptures for their homes, glazing with detail and precision to make the item that much more beautiful. For campers to make their own art with their own hands is remarkable, not to mention that it is art that functions in their home. All these crafts the campers create for their homes is a special way for campers to keep the spirit of Camp Starlight at home with their families, crafts that will last long after a camper’s last summer. 
Every day at Camp Starlight is full of magic, but when the Carnival comes to camp, the magic and fun reaches a whole new level. Bouncy castles and blown up obstacle courses are scattered around the grounds while sticks of fluffy cotton candy and bags of fresh popcorn are spotted in the hand of every camper. Giant slides tower over everyone and water splashes those who pass by the dunk tank–fun is seen around every corner and you can tell that every camper is enjoying the playful atmosphere not just because a tiger or butterfly is painted on their face, but because they have a huge smile. The atmosphere of the day is electric with happiness and laughter because Carnival is a day that entirely caters to the playful personalities of campers, encouraging campers to run around, play on the blow up obstacle courses and games, eat cotton candy and laugh with their friends when they get dropped into the dunk tank. It is truly a day where campers let loose and enjoy an entire Carnival with their camp friends, an opportunity that does not come very often in life. Camp Starlight provides the Carnival to campers as a chance to let campers have as much fun as they want, but to also remind them there is so much for them to celebrate towards the end of the summer. Carnival is a celebration of fun and playfulness, but most importantly it’s a celebration of the good times at Camp Starlight. The fun and games of the day reminds campers to celebrate all the friendships they’ve made and to celebrate the all the fun they’ve experienced at Camp Starlight. Even though Carnival is at the end of the summer to show campers there is still so much fun to experience at camp and this is the time to celebrate all the fun they’ve enjoyed so far, and all the fun they will enjoy in this summer and in more summers to come. 
After battling other teams all summer long for the title of Starlight League Champion, the winners of Starlight Leagues have come out on top. The Starlight Leagues divided all the divisions into four different teams that went head to head at all sorts of sports on campus. Taking it from the sand of the volleyball courts or the pitch of the softball and baseball mounds, the teams had to work together all summer long to win the game and then ultimately a Ben & Jerry’s catered ice cream party. Every single camper contributed to their team’s wins, meaning they had to practice respectful sportsmanship, encourage their teammates–especially during the tough times–and work together as one team and not rely on one individual to succeed. The Starlight Leagues competition also helps campers meet new friends at camp from outside their own bunk, creating more unified divisions across campus. The bonds these campers make when fighting for the win on the basketball court or kicking a soccer ball for the goal with all their strength is what really unifies and strengthens the connections between campers. Even though only one team from each division won the chance to enjoy an ice cream party, every camper got to experience the joy of cheering on their teammates and in turn forming new found friendships. The point of Starlight Leagues was not to stress the focus on winning or losing in sports, but to show how important it is to truly work as a team and see what you can achieve when that does happen. There is no denying that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is sweet, but nothing is sweeter than forming new friendships from team work, regardless if the points added up to 100 or 0. 