Camp Echo Lake – Inter Girls: Week 2 Recap
This week, the Inter Girls participated in Girl’s Camp Special Day. This year’s theme was a Medieval Fair. In the morning, the groups traveled around to different activities such as: building sand castles for the queen, making gowns for the queen out of garbage bags & masking tape, playing a spin-off version of capture the flag called “capture the crown” and our LITs hosted a handful of medieval games like hopscotch and marbles.
After lunch, we all watched the movie Brave in the lodge, and “chowed down” on chipwiches. The movie was followed by the main event – a jousting competition! Echo Lake male staff members came dressed as knights and jousted in the pool for their respective villages, which ended in an all-Girl’s Camp pool party. The campers and staff really enjoyed traveling back in time for the day!
Throughout the day, the campers traveled in mixed teams of Juniors and Inters. This gave the girls the chance to get to know campers from every age group to unite as one on Main Camp.
This week, the whole camp came together to watch the Upper Inter’s rendition of Hairspray (which was an amazing show!). The campers all had a great time on stage and captivated the audience with their performance. It was amazing to see the support that the Upper Inters received from the entire camp. The performance of Hairspray set a great example for the rest of camp by getting up on stage within the first few weeks of the summer to perform in front of over 800 people!
Both Upper and Lower Inter Girls had the opportunity to participate in a soccer inter-camp together. Echo Lake hosted four other camps including Camp Walden and Camp Che-Na-Wah. While neither the Green nor the Gold team from Echo Lake won the overall inter-camp, the girls enjoyed competing together and socializing with girls from the other camps.
This week, the Inters have learned the importance of supporting each other. At Camp Echo Lake, the campers are encouraged to try new things, and the support of fellow campers makes it easy to do so. The Inter Girls have exhibited great model behavior for the younger campers, embracing their role as leaders on Girl’s Camp.
This week, the girls participated in Echo Lake’s first ever “Fuzzy Feud!” This was Echo Lake’s version of the popular game show Family Feud. All of the answers to the trivia questions came from an actual survey that our program team gave to Echo Lake campers.
Every group had the chance to participate in “Fuzzy Feud.” Even when groups got eliminated, the campers from the eliminated groups were still engaged,. as they tried to help other teams make it to the final round (another example of the supportive culture that exists at Echo Lake).
It is our goal to continue to be supportive of one another and build each other up. This past week, I put together an anonymous survey for all of the Inter Girls to fill out. The questions were open-ended and focused on challenges as well as goals for the summer. We then discussed behaviors and attitudes as a group in an effort to help the girls reach their goals and take on any challenges that may come their way this summer. This mature group discussion about being respectful to others was another positive step in making this the best summer ever for the girls.
The Lower Inter Girls will have their first campfire with Laurie this summer. Filled with songs, s’mores and wish lanterns, campfires with Laurie are a special tradition at Camp Echo Lake.
The Upper Inter Girls will have a bonding night with me. East and West will be spending time together playing silly games like blind makeovers (where the camper applying the makeup closes her eyes until she is finished), as well as activities to continue strengthening the bond of the Upper Inter Girls as a whole.
Last, but certainly not least, all of the Inter Girls are SO EXCITED to see their parents on Visiting Day this weekend!
