Goal: To teach young people about responsibility, authority, and hard work that will prepare them to be counselors and leaders in the future, or to prepare them for college life. Being a camp counselor is a great summer job for college students. Our CIT program is a great way for campers who love camp but are "too old" to continue attending, to gain necessary experience and qualities needed to secure a job. Most camps look for past camp experience or CIT program experience in their search for quality counselor candidates.
CIT’s will: Act as mentors to campers
Help set-up and clean-up activities
Help Camp Mom/Dad with meals (set-up/break down of)
Help instructors during activities
Will participate in certain activities i.e. (outriders for trailrides,
paintball referee, etc.)
After attending the CIT program for 6-weeks over a two year span, participants will be able to apply for a Camp Assistant position. The Camp Assistant is a Junior Counselor position with more responsibility and accountability and is also a paid position.
Price: There is a small tuition fee for CIT’s to cover the cost of food and board.
1 to 3 weeks $250.00 per week(extra paid activities not included)
4 or more weeks $150.00 per week
Past CIT/Volunteers' experiences and comments:
My time as a CIT/Volunteer taught me a different perspective of "camp". It was no longer about me just having fun at camp being a camper but now, as a CIT/Volunteer, I had to look after the younger kids to make sure they were safe and having fun. It taught me patience, like going last in getting food to make sure that they got fed. Also, when it came to the cattle round-up instead of being in front of the line, I was back making sure no kid got left behind and that no kid hand problems with the horse. This time helped me to learn how to listen to the younger campers when they had a problem and challenged me to help them learn to problem solve. Now I was the mediator.
I feel that being a CIT/Volunteer helped me to grow as a person, to prepare me for future responsibilities, it taught me what it takes to be a counselor full time (hard job and yet my counselor put up with me and always made it fun). This experience this time around about me being self-less instead of focusing on me and my camp experience. It did teach me how hard it is to be a full time counselor and I have a load more respect for them now and what it took to always make my camp time fun.
I would definitely go back, but now, being older, it will hopefully be as a counselor someday and the CIT/Volunteer program helped prepare me for that with Camp Illahaw and other camps.
