LITTLE ROCK — A week’s worth of clothes for all weather conditions? Check. Swimsuit? Flip-flops? Baseball glove? Check. Flashlight with extra batteries? Check.
Bag of Hershey’s Miniatures and a box of sparklers rolled up inside a towel. Check?
Summer camp season is gearing up, and most camps have a handy checklist of what to pack and what to leave home. Keen attention to both lists will make for a happy experience for campers and camp staff, says Joe Gill, program director at Ferncliff, southwest of Little Rock.
In fact, equal or even greater attention should be paid to the “what not to bring” checklist. Ferncliff lists “Clothes you wouldn’t want to get dirty.”
Dirt will happen. Mud, too, sometimes. “Camp is a place where campers might get a little dirty or a little active, and who knows how it will turn out,” Gill says. “Some campers will come and they’ll be very upset when their shoes get wet, when a T-shirt gets dirty, because they’re concerned their parents will be mad at them.”
The final item on Ferncliff’s “don’t bring” list is a catchall and a hedge against desolation: “Anything which would result in tremendous unhappiness if it were lost, broken or got dirty.”
One exception to the “no valuables” advice is an optional item, a favorite stuffed animal. “We have Discovery campers as young as first grade,” Gill says. “That item can help them bring a comfort and a little bit of home.” (The seniors who bring them aren’t saying whether it’s for comfort or jest.)
Most camps specify no personal electronics. But cell phones will slip through. “Often times the parents are the ones who are less comfortable with the children not having the cell phones,” he says. “The parent snuck the phone in so the child could call them every night.”
None of the counselors have cell phones, he noted. “They have to follow the same rules.”
Gill’s advice: Don’t overpack, in case the camper has to haul his stuff up a hill; tuck in a disposable camera for fun.
It’s also helpful to pack a copy of the “what to pack” checklist, to help a camper round up everything when he’s packing to go home at the end of the week.
“Towels, hats — we end up with hundreds of these by the end of the summer,” Gill says. “Mostly our lost and found is a left sock.” Unclaimed objects are kept into the off season, and sometimes recycled. “We’ll wash it, keep it; if it’s useful we might recirculate it,” Gill says. “Who’s going to come back and claim a brown towel?”
This year, to keep up with often toted and easily lost objects like towels, swimsuits and water bottles, Ferncliff is giving each child a small drawstring backpack in the color of the camper’s group, marked with the camper’s name.
Some of those will probably end up in the lost and found bin too, Gill says.
Cell phones and other electronics are also a no-no at Camp Ozark, a “Christian adventure camp” near Mount Ida.
“We want campers to have fun and forget the world out there while they’re here,” says Alana Tarkinton, store manager. “We take it up as contraband and we’ll hold it ’til the last day of camp.”
The camp draws most of its campers from Texas and other surrounding states, and likes them to pack their gear in a footlocker. They sell official Camp Ozark footlockers, and for those who really don’t want to mess with packing, they have various “half enchilada” and “whole enchilada” packages — the footlocker, plus everything a camper will need for two or three weeks, except underwear and some other personal effects. Prices range from $375 to $650.
Out of 5,000 campers per summer, about 50 families will order the stuffed footlockers, Tarkinton says. “Some parents find it easier just because they don’t feel like packing.”
Kids are kept too busy to miss their gadgets, with horseback riding, fishing, wakeboarding, mountain biking, volleyball, lacrosse, miniature golf and other outdoor activities, as well as theme events such as a disco night and Christmas night. This year, a new program will offer creative alternatives to electronic play, such as a real-life version of Angry Birds.
Tarkinton’s main advice is to leave those cell phones at home.
“I know in today’s society we’re all so connected,” she says. “But really allow your camper, once they get here, to have their fun for a while.”
At Conway’s Information Careers Technology Camp, run jointly by the University of Central Arkansas and Acxiom, electronics are required gear.
Summer students are encouraged to take laptops and tablets, and cell phones are allowed too. “The kids have them as part of their technology life,” says Summer Bartok, one of the camp coordinators. “We certainly don’t keep them from bringing technology to the camp.”
And the next hot handheld game could have its origins in a camper’s project: Cell phones are used when campers in the advanced track work on developing mobile applications, she says.
Family, Pages 34 on 05/30/2012