Camp

Eel')
Wanted!

Camps are fighting
for a vanishing breed
counselors from America.

JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR
Special to the Jewish News

ately, Jack Schulman is
beginning to sound like
most business owners
when he says,
"Good help is hard to
find."
But he is not a fast-
food restaurant operator
or even a retailer. In
fact, Schulman offers
jobs to young adults
that were in high
demand just a decade
ago. His biz? Summer
camp. The jobs? Camp
counselors.
"It is always the most
difficult thing to do but
even now it seems hard-
er," said Schulman, who
owns and runs Camp
Sea-Gull in Charlevoix
with his brother, Bill.
"Whether it is big or small, religious
or non-sectarian, specialty or tradi-
tional, camps in America are facing
big obstacles in attracting counselors
to work six to nine weeks playing
with and supervising children.
The problem has become so bad
that most camps bring in large num-
bers of foreign workers to fill the jobs
that only a few years ago almost
exclusively went to American-born
individuals.
While foreign counselors — com-
ing from Europe, Israel, Australia,
South Africa and New Zealand — are
qualified, the camp owners and direc-
tors say they prefer to work with

12/10
1999

104

Counselor
Beth Schwartz, right,
made lots of friends
at camp.

.

Bob Jackson,
right, watches
Justin Migliore
dunk over John
Williamson.

Americans and avoid the problems of
travel and language. They want to
keep the feeling that camp is an
American experience.
Harvey Finkelberg, executive
director of the Fresh Air
Society/Tamarack Camps, said the
ideal counselor is American, mostly
because of the logistics in arranging
for foreign staff to come to the
United States. Of his 400 counselors
and specialists, 50 percent are
American, 25 percent are Canadian
and 25 percent come from overseas;
of the foreign counselors, 60 percent
are Jewish.
Non-Jewish personnel cannot serve
as bunk counselors at Tamarack, but

work in specialty areas such as horse-
back riding,
to or in the kitchen.
"You still want to have an
American flavor to the camp,"
Finkelberg said.
The most ideal counselor, he said,
is one who came to the camp as a
child and has grown through the
camp experience.
"Those who continue the camp
experience and become counselors are
bringing back to the new campers
what experiences they had in a Jewish
camp," Finkelberg said.
The reasons for the downward
trend in American counselors are
plentiful. For one, the camps must
compete with all other businesses in

the booming economy that has
sparked record low unemployment lev-
els. With Michigan's unemployment
rate holding in the low single digits,
older teens and young adults are being
swayed by jobs that pay more for fewer
hours of work. Many retailers, for
example, pay between $6 and $10 an
hour and offer flexible work schedules.
Currently, camp counselors are paid
between $1,200 and $1,350 to start,
with salaries rising to $2,000 or greater
for those with several years of experi-
ence or those with special training,
such as a lifeguard or an equestrian.
Room and board is included in the
pay. For six 40-hour plus work weeks
and one required week of training and
preparing the camp, a new counselor
can expect to earn $4.29 to $4.82 an
hour before taxes, both below the min-
imum wage of $5.25.
Beth Schwartz began camping at
age 7 and served the last three sum-
mers as a counselor at Camp Maas.
Despite the "amazing experiences" she
has had as a counselor, she may look
next summer into working in her field
of study, child psychology
"For me, being a counselor is not
about the money. You learn so much
more by working in camp than you do
working in retail. You learn how to
deal with so many things that you
would never think of," she said.
Summer camp, while it provides
experience in working with children, is
seen by some as "goofing off," not hav-
ing spent one's time in an optimum
learning mode.
Larry Stevens, director and owner of
Camp Walden located outside of
Cheboygan, blames the "unprecedent-
ed emphasis" society and parents place
on the college students for the coun-
selor shortage.
"Getting ahead and being successful
has put a dent in the job market for
camps," he said.
And other potential counselors have
never been exposed to the camp expe-
rience, leaving them with no memories
to sway them into spending the sum-
mer sleeping in a bunk and caring for
a dozen or more kids.
Finkelberg said in the 1980s, the
camp population sank to record lows
as different summer activities began to
compete with traditional camping.
This has left a smaller pool of camp-
experienced counselors. "They weren't
there then and they aren't here now,"
he said.
Finally, camps with specialties have a
harder time recruiting workers. Camp
Sea-Gull, an all-girls camp in
Charlevoix, must seek out only women