Recruiting: Above and Beyond

It’s the time of year when our camp teams are all out on the road, recruiting next summer’s awesome Pine Cove staff. While many college students are familiar with Pine Cove from either being a camper themselves or hearing about it while growing up, the vast majority of our staff are encouraged to apply from their friends who have worked a previous summer.

Our full-time camp teams rely heavily on staff to invite their friends to come interview, and having a reference from a former staffer is super helpful in the process. We love it!

Nearly all of our staff encourage their friends to apply for camp, but there were a few this past year who really went above and beyond to help Pine Cove find applicants for summer 2018! We took time at Orientation to recognize them in front of the rest of our staff to say thank you. Here are their stories:

Payton “Room to Grow” Weinzapfel (Ranch)
Payton was incredibly helpful at East Texas Baptist University (ETBU). She was great at taking initiative bringing friends to come interview. She even stayed connected with all the staff we hired from ETBU throughout the rest of the school year.

Emma “Jump Set Spike” Yeatts (Ranch)
Emma helped the team strategically recruit at Mississippi College. She chose to spend every spare moment calling friends and those she influences to come and serve at Pine Cove. From bringing donuts to bringing Chick-fil-A sandwiches to the booth at lunch times for applicants, she knew how to get the people to interview.

Grant “Spin Manuel Lalanda” Wilkie (Shores)
Grant was consistently coming to the full-time Pine Cove recruiters with more guys for them to interview. He brought seven or eight really solid guys that he thought would not only be great for camp, but he was invested in their lives and wanted to see what God could do through them during a summer at camp. It was cool to hear the way he was discipling so many people, and he chose to bring them to apply for camp!

Falyn “Sporkasaurus” Ruby (Camp in the City Team E)
Falyn was organized and engaging! She helped make announcements to her sorority at Mississippi State and then spent most of her time at the table with a friendly smile to all who passed by. She checked on the full-time team a week before they arrived to ensure all the details were covered for everything. It was easy to see that everyone loved her on campus, which helped us get the word out about camp!

Sarah Kate “A1 Sassy Sauce” Warnke (Outback)
Sarah did a fantastic job at The University of Texas at Austin. She assembled a great team, and set up an awesome event that she had planned with tacos and Blue Bell ice cream in someone’s apartment! There were a ton of people who came out to the event and ended up interviewing. She was very motivated and creative! It was awesome to see how well she communicated and the way she got people excited about camp.

Chandler “Gryfinfloor” Cahoon (Outback)
Chandler was on the ball with details at Auburn. She came up with creative and fun ideas and did a phenomenal job of connecting with returning staff and talking about camp to new people. Her initiative is definitely one of the reasons that Auburn has had continued massive success in recruiting! (Auburn has become one of our top schools!)

Caroline “Nacho Knees” Hazelbaker (Chimney Point)
Because of Caroline, we saw a huge increase (from two staffers to 12) at UNC Chapel Hill! Many of our new staffers this year were in Caroline’s Bible study, and mostly freshmen. We loved hearing the way she was discipling younger girls, and now we know that UNC will probably be a viable long-term school partnership because of her.

Trevor “Bonko” Mullikin (Camp in the City Team D)
Trevor helped coordinate and plan an unscheduled recruiting trip that resulted in nearly 30 interviews at Lee University! Similar to Caroline, he took an “untapped school” like Lee and put Pine Cove on the map. Trevor helped make in-class announcements and also set up a chapel announcement for our team.

As our camp teams are out on the road even now visiting various colleges across the country, we know there will be many more stories like these this year too! We love seeing how invested our staff are on their campuses, and the way they are discipling their peers. If you know a college student who you think would be a great fit at Pine Cove next summer, encourage them to start their application today! Pinecove.com/apply