Has Anyone Heard of.........

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-20-2005
Has Anyone Heard of.........
1
Sat, 02-18-2006 - 10:34pm

Hi to all,

my 19 year old dd has applied for a summer job at camp Kenwood/Kenmount camp and they are very interested in her as a potencial employee for the summer. We live in Ontario Canada and I do not know anything about this camp, I was wondering if anyone knows of it or has heard of it. The camp is near Kent Ct. Anything anyone can tell me would be greatly appreciated. Is there a web site in the states to check camps out?

Thanks in advance

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2005
Tue, 02-21-2006 - 9:54am

I have not heard of this particular camp but I can tell you that oldest DD worked at a church camp for 5 summers and it was a wonderful experience for her. She formed friendships among her fellow workers that will last her a lifetime. It also provided her with some invaluable future job experiences. She was the first aid director a couple of summers. She drove a pregnant 12 y/o to the hospital to deliver and was allowed to act as temporary guardian during the delivery so she was allowed to "assist". The child knew she was pregnant but her family did not know and neither did the workers at camp until D-day. DD also was responsible for getting a young lady with leukemia early diagnosis. Her mom thought that all that was wrong with her was stress from the parent's divorce. The child's pediatrician concurred and thought that camp would be an excellent experience for her. DD insisted that something else wasn't right and used the camp's "guardian" status to obtain further testing for her. The child was immediately transferred to St. Jude for further testing and treatment. The child's father was very greatful to DD but mom was angry that DD went over her head and insisted on testing.

I understand your concern about letting your DD go live somewhere that you don't know anything at all about. A couple of suggestions - call the health dept of the county the camp is located in and ask about it's inspection policies and scores. A camp must serve and therefore I would think it must be inspected. You might also call a local church in the area and speak to the minister. Even if the camp is not affliated with a church, minister's usually know what's going on in their community. They might be hesitant to say anything bad but you might be able to get a sense.

I wish you a lot of luck with this and hope that if she takes the job, she has a positive experience. Despite the "horror stories" I listed above, DD believes that she is a much better person having had those experiences.