It’s Training Week!

We’re still a few weeks away from the official start of summer camp, but that doesn’t mean camp is empty! In fact, all of our camps are currently in the midst of a very busy week of staff training! This is a very important week where all of our wranglers, lifeguards, media staff, and more learn the skills their jobs will require this summer.

Also known as “Trailblazing” because we are sometimes literally “blazing trails” for activities like mountain biking, these packed few days will see tons of staffers staying busy all week long. They’re working on projects, creating skit videos, cleaning camp, and taking tests to ensure they’ve mastered their new skills.

Also training this week? Health assistants, ropes course operators, boat drivers, retail workers, and anyone else with a highly specialized position.  Next week is our mandatory staff orientation, and that’s when staff really get to dive headfirst into all things Pine Cove culture. (If you’ve ever been a camper, do you remember what you felt like at your first meal? Yeah. It’s kind of like that times one hundred.)

During meals and other breaks from all the training, there are a ton of “Name Games” happening, and we have already had some hilarious ones come out of this week! (Word to the wise: never say on stage something you hate being called. It won’t end well. For example, hate being called “Buddy?” Welcome to your forever camp name, Airbud!)

Besides formal training, any staff who come in to work on projects (or “trailblaze”), work on more projects than we can count. Create all the theme night decorations and banners? Check. Repaint anything and everything around camp? Check. Deep clean the kitchen drains? Check. Go through the entire Camp in the City warehouse to make sure everything is accounted for? Check. Clean out the ponds? Check!

This week is also a time when our staff get to know each other. As you might expect, a lot of our staffers go to college somewhere in Texas, but we also have staff from colleges all across the Southeast, throughout the Midwest, and scattered throughout the rest of the country too. For most of our staff, this is a unique time when they get to come alongside thousands of other like-minded college students who are all here to serve the same purpose. It’s overwhelming, a dream come true, the start of lifelong friendships, challenging, and everything in between.

We are thankful for the Lord’s protection during Training Week this year, and we also know as it wraps up that we are that much closer to campers! We can’t wait!