Working at Camp Starlight for a summer is fun, challenging, and rewarding. You have the opportunity to live in a bunk with our campers on our beautiful campus in the endless mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania. You will work with campers during each of our six activity periods. However, you will be with the kids so much more often than that. In fact, you’ll be with them from wake-up to bedtime.
Mealtimes. Rest Hour. Shower Hour. Activity Periods. All-day long, you have the chance to interact with our amazing campers. And as lucky as you are to be with them, they are equally fortunate to have you as one of our amazing staff members.
Through all the time that you spend with your campers, it only takes a single moment…a single moment to change a child’s life. This may sound like something out of a fantasy novel, but it is absolutely true. We can all think back to a single conversation we had with an adult when we were younger that still impacts us today. The strangest part about this “moment”? You will never know it’s happening, and neither will the child. You may say something that seems inconsequential to both of you. Then, days later, that child is still thinking about it and you have long since forgotten about it. Years later, you’ve changed that child’s future based on a single conversation, and while they frantically search for your phone number to say “Thank You,” you may hardly remember that camper.
At the conclusion of my third summer at Camp Starlight, I received a Counselor Appreciation letter from a camper who wrote about something that had happened the summer previously. The letter detailed a very intellectual and emotional realization that the camper had due to an interaction we had. However, this interaction wasn’t a profound conversation or a disciplinary issue. This interaction was me turning off the water while he brushed his teeth. He turned it back on. I turned it off. We went back and forth several times, and, amidst our laughter, I finally convinced him to leave it off once I left the bathroom. In my mind, that was the end. However, for reasons he explained in the letter, this was genuinely a meaningful moment in his life that he still thought about over a year later. Without his Counselor Appreciation Letter, I would have never known this “moment” existed.
As a counselor at Camp Starlight, we only ask that you come as you are. Athletic, quirky, nerdy, shy, outgoing, or anything in between. We’ve seen it all and appreciate it equally. As a staff member, we don’t expect your summer to be filled with life-changing moments. In fact, looking for these moments would be counterproductive. By simply being yourself, you will build strong relationships with your campers.
So, don’t search for this “moment.” Embrace your individuality and cherish the summer with these amazing children because as much as you can impact them, they will certainly have an impact on you.
A significant number of our counselors are campers who just can’t get enough of Camp Starlight. Some of our veteran camp counselors and staff members started out as wide-eyed, excited, first-time campers who fell in love with sleepaway camp. The camp experience is ingrained so deep into their life that there’s no place they’d rather spend their summer. Some can barely remember a summer that wasn’t spent at Camp Starlight, and they love it that way.
For many campers, Camp Starlight becomes a second home, a special place that welcomes you back every summer like family and supports you to be the best person you can be. Camp Starlight becomes a staple in many campers lives’ and for a few of them it becomes a home they never leave when they decide to return as counselors. When they left Camp Starlight they realized they didn’t want their last summer as a camper to be the last time they get to watch a sunset over the lake or sing a song around the campfire, they wanted to continue to live through those traditions. After spending eight summers as a camper that gets to experience all the playful fun of camp, campers will transition to the role of counselors to experience summer camp in a whole different way. Former Camper Counselors return to Camp Starlight so they can help campers live the same amazing summers that they once did. These counselors recognize that when they were campers, their own counselors were the ones to push them out of their comfort zone and pick them up every time they were down, helping them become the individuals they are today. This is why so many campers return to become counselors, they want to change lives the way their own lives were changed. They want to help a camper find their passion and make them realize that Camp Starlight is their home when they feel homesick. They want to help campers understand how special of a place Camp Starlight is and that the happiness they find here will guide them for the rest of their lives, but most of all, campers return as counselors because they want to spread the love they have received from every summer spent at Camp Starlight.
The staff at Camp Starlight is comprised of a wide range of people that hail from countries scattered all over the globe. Camp Starlight becomes a placed infused with so many cultures and new traditions in the summer when staff come from places such as New Zealand, England, Mexico and South Africa. When all these people come to Camp Starlight it can provide campers and other staff members with valuable insight into different lifestyles and help them learn about cultures that differ from their own. It is so valuable to have these international staff members because it helps Camp Starlight become a summer camp enriched with new ideas and cultures. Internationals can help bring new songs to sing around the campfire and new types of friendships bracelets to make for your friends, mixing up the regular everyday American camp customs. They also inspire people to travel and experience new things, broadening minds on different opportunities to take advantage of across the world. It is so important to have international staff so that the campers can still keep learning even in the summer. Even though summer camp is supposed to be a break from school, campers are learning so many important lessons and things about all these different cultures when they come to Camp Starlight. International staff helps campers remain curious and ask questions about things from all over the world, making Camp Starlight a better place for campers every summer. 
As summer approaches, individuals are faced with the question of where to work for the summer. While acquiring an internship can give you extensive experience in your respective field of work, the benefits of working as a camp counselor are too large to ignore. For seven weeks, you are working in a fast-paced environment with people from all over the world. These seven weeks present challenges, valuable lessons, and an increase in skills you never realized you had.
Take a moment and look around you. Whether it be at a restaurant, at the movies, at a park, or in your own home, there is one constant that is found at all times with individuals; mobile devices. Phones, iPads, and other forms of technology have taken over daily life. It has become impossible to have a simple meal with family or a playdate with friends without the distraction of technology.
After working a summer at sleepaway camp, it is hard to summarize the vast amount of experience gained in just a few weeks. Over the course of one summer, you are presented with challenges, lessons, an increased set of skills, and numerous other benefits. When you think of a summer spent working at sleepaway camp, the first thing that comes to mind are the times spent on the field helping kids learn how to kick a soccer ball, in the bunk playing jacks with your campers, or at the evening campfires roasting S’mores. Because each of these moments are filled with lifelong memories, it can be challenging to recognize that these moments are extremely applicable in the professional world.
It is often stated that if you love your job then you’re never really working. A smile is usually accompanied with this statement if you realize that you are one of these lucky people fortunate to earn a living by doing what they are passionate about. At Camp Starlight, every single staff member feels this way, they all believe they have the best job at campus, trusting that their specific duty is the most fun to do. To put this to the test, a series of interviews will be held all summer asking staff from different specialties why they believe their job is the best at Camp Starlight.
Most people will tell you that growing up means having less time to play. Summer vacations for kids? Nothing but fun! Summer vacations for grown ups? “Booooring!”
Whether they’re a veteran camper or excited newcomer, every single counselor at Camp Starlight goes through intensive training and team-building activities before the first group of campers arrives.
Written by Megan Panelas 