3 Camps, 5 Counselors: Three groups of students worked at summer camps as counselors

Junior Ella Bruce spent her summer baking rainbow challah bread with elementary schoolers, and junior Aida Bruce drew hearts and flowers on the kids’ arms. The twins worked at the Jewish Community Center summer camps eight hours a day for six weeks. 

“For a week straight I was just doing hand and arm tattoos, one after the other,” Aida said. “I had to stop bringing [markers] because the kids started fighting over them.”

While Ella and Aida didn’t spend every day together in the same room at specialty camps, such as LEGO camp or culinary camp, the campers still knew them as “the twins.”

“The kids were absolutely fascinated with it, it actually got kind of annoying,” Ella said. “After a while, if one of them knew me and not Aida, they would call us the Ellas. So that was kind of cute at first, and then it was like, ‘Okay guys, we get it.’”

Between trips to the pool and impromptu dance routines during the camp, the Bruces were able to engage with the Jewish Community Center, after previously only taking the Center’s yoga classes, in a way they hadn’t before. 

However, the Bruce's favorite part of the Jewish Community Center summer camp was the campers, and they hope to return next year.

“I really liked getting to know all the little kids,” Aida said. “Little kids are really funny, and they say stuff that is completely out of pocket. I always had a new story to tell my family when I got home.”

“Buttons! Buttons! Buttons!”

A school bus full of elementary girls chanted senior Norah Anderson’s self-proclaimed summer camp name as she stepped onto the bus for the last time — after today, she was leaving Tongawood Girl Scout Camp, as a counselor, for good. 

Anderson worked at Girl Scout Camp as an O.W.L. — Outstanding Woman Leader — to gain experience with elementary education by teaching groups of Girl Scouts how to raise and lower an American flag and assisting with adventure activities.

“I was crying so much because it was my last year as a counselor, and then five minutes into the drive, this little first or second grader gave me a little folded flag out of masking tape and a Sharpie,” Anderson said.

But Anderson’s passion for working with children doesn’t stop at Tongawood. She’s currently enrolled in the Teacher Education class where she student-teaches, works at the Fairway Pool day camp and babysits year-round.

“It’s really weird,” Anderson said. “If I'm driving around somewhere, in the East area, and I see a kid, there's like an 80% chance I know the kid from somewhere.”

Something Anderson did learn from this summer: every Girl Scout or student has a different personality, and it’s okay to change the lesson plan — even if that means adapting her flag ceremony at Girl Scout camp because first graders need more one-on-one attention.

“Each kid’s going to have a different way of looking at things,” Anderson said. “I think that's really great, and what makes being a teacher so special.”

By the end of the three-day camp, the girls were swarming Anderson for a group hug.

“It was ridiculously sweet,” Anderson said. “They all came up and hugged me, I was crying so hard.”

Senior Caroline Reda and junior Dane Schwartz spent their summer exactly how they have for the past six years: in front of bright stage lights.

This year, however, they led the camp they’ve grown up at — Stage Right Performing Arts Summer Camp. The elementary schoolers performed in “Finding Nemo” this summer, spending four weeks from 9 a.m. to noon rehearsing their lines.

“The people that I used to look up to were the camp [counselors],” Reda said. “Last year and this year, I worked as a Camp Wrangler. I like to see how [the kids] progress and how they expand on theater.”

Schwartz, alongside Reda, spent his summer herding students ages 8-11 around Center High School and leading them in group games of “Ships and Sailors” and vocal warm-ups. On Fridays — the coveted weekly theme day — it was normal to see budding performers dressed up in costumes like colorful hula skirts and obnoxious Hawaiian tourist T-shirts.

“We were all just hanging out and having a blast,” Schwartz said. “We would have a giant group photo together, and I just look back on that and remember how fun the experience was, and it makes me happy.”

Both Schwartz and Reda hope to continue engaging with the Stage Right community, not only through the school year, but also next summer. 

“I was young enough to be in one of those camps and have camp counselors that I looked up to,” Schwartz said. “I hope that I'm that same type of person that they can look up to.”