The power of camp, no matter the amount of time spent there, has a lasting effect on campers and counselors. On this episode of MyCamp, we sat down with Nick Coffing, the General Manager of Canyon Creek Summer Camp to chat about this awesome power of camp!

Canyon Creek Summer Camp is located in Southern California and opened in 2001. They started with about 30 campers and now serve over 1,000 campers each summer! A lot of their campers come from LA, where some campers stay for multiple weeks and others stay for a week. They have 5 sessions in total, and in the middle of the two-week sessions they play a sports tournament. Nick called this intense game of sports “Tournament” and everyone gets super excited to participate in it! Every night they have Campfire, where they sing songs, play games, and do skits together as a camp. At the end of Campfire they play Spin the Wheel, where they randomly select a few cabins to participate. The counselors of those cabins have to spin the wheel, hoping to land on an ice cream party for their cabin! If they land on a Whammy instead, they have a punishment or participate in a camp challenge. One year the punishment for counselors was getting an egg cracked on them! Nick showed us what the wheel looks like on the podcast, so you’ll have to watch the episode to see the other challenges on the wheel!

Campers at Canyon Creek Summer Camp are called Creekers, and the day in the life of a Creeker is super exciting! Nick explained how they strive to teach their campers independence, so in the afternoon the Creekers have Free Time. During Free Time, the Creekers can pick which activities or spots on camp they want to hang out in, this allows the counselors to meet other kids that aren’t in their cabin. Nick also talked about the Creeker Way, which is based on family and respect. At camp, campers create a camp family that helps them feel safe, valued, and loved.

We learned from Nick that waking up at camp is different than anywhere else, because you get to be you. Nick was such a great guest, Canyon Creek Summer Camp sounds like an amazing experience!

Want to support Canyon Creek Summer Camp? Go to their site at https://www.canyoncreeksummercamp.com/ and check out their Harold Robinson Foundation, a nonprofit that gives elementary students a chance to come to camp for free and provides jobs for recently incarcerated adults.

Check out more of our My Camp podcasts and other camp materials on our Happy Camper Live website. You can also find us on YouTube at Happy Camper Live and on Instagram @happy_camper_live.