Summer Camp

Information, thinking and ideas about summer camp drawn using examples from Rockbrook Camp located in the mountains of Brevard, North Carolina.

girl yoga with hurt ankle
• Summer Camp • rbc

Camp Nurse Jobs

Camp Nurse helping girl

Speaking of nurses and nursing, in particular camp nurses, we want to remind everyone that Rockbrook will be hiring nurses again for this summer’s camp season. We hire nurses for each of our sessions, for 2-, 3-, or 4-week terms. Accepting one of the nursing positions is one of the best ways to experience summer camp as an adult, work with happy engaged children, and get to know this area of North Carolina.

Benefits of Camp Nursing

Being a camp nurse is a wonderful way to experience camp life, to spend time outdoors, to work with amazing people, and to compliment so many of your nursing skills. It’s a chance to join the camp community, make lots of friends, and enjoy a special place for a few weeks of your summer. Just like the campers, odds are you’ll love camp and you’ll want to come back summer after summer.

How to Apply

If you, or someone you know, might be interested in one of our camp nurse jobs, please let us know. We’d love to tell you more about it.

Leave a Comment
camp lisa songs
• Summer Camp • rbc

Lisa Loeb’s Songs for Camp

Lisa Loeb Camp CD Cover

Lisa Loeb, singer and songwriter best known for her hit song “Stay,” has released a new CD of songs inspired by her time as a kid at summer camp. It’s a fun collection of original compositions and traditional songs all about going away to camp, the friends, the food, the fun, of just being at summer camp. She explains,

“The inspiration was the actual songs based in camp songs. In camp, we have gross-out songs, and ones like the peanut butter and jelly song. One of the things I loved most about camp is that you’re singing all the time. You did sports, and arts and crafts, ate a lot of fun food — you were singing everywhere.”

The CD has some cool guest artists helping out too, people like Steve Martin (who plays banjo) and Jill Sobule. We also like a lot of the great camp lyrics on songs like, “Are You Ready for the Summer?” “It’s not Goodbye,” and “Best Friend.”  If you’ve been to camp, you’ll really enjoy this CD.

You can hear the song “Best Friend” over at Lisa’s website. And then check out all of the great Rockbrook camp songs.

Leave a Comment
teen girls at summer camp
• Summer Camp • rbc

Camp Builds Teen Self Esteem

NC Teen Camp Girl

It’s not something we talk about much— mostly because it happens without any extra effort —but camp is a place where everyday you can achieve something great. You can make something, do something extra-ordinary (if ordinary is what happens at home or at school), meet some challenge, and feel good about it. For a teen girl, especially, camp proves you can do it, and you can believe in yourself.  It’s a real boost to your self-esteem. Sure things can sometimes go badly, like when you can’t quite hit the target at first, but camp is also a place where you get plenty of encouragement and support from the people around you. Particularly at Rockbrook, we’re not competing. We’re all trying new things and enjoying each other’s company, no matter what our “score.” Here too, it feels so good when you realize that these people are your friends, no matter what. Ask the teen girls that come to camp every summer, and they’ll tell you. It’s just like this.

Leave a Comment
Summer Camp Staff
• Summer Camp • rbc

Bend It Back

Helping the Girl at Camp

There are people in my life who I admire, who I emulate, because they, without hope for award or acknowledgment, joyfully and selflessly give all that they can in service to others. Many of these people are campers and counselors at Rockbrook Camp.

Rockbrook campers are often recognized for their good deeds by being awarded colorful, way-cool Bend-It-Back bracelets. And I mean that. They truly are way-cool. A mark of pride and contribution to the community.

I watch my co-workers exemplify selfless generosity every day as they put campers first, and I watch campers recognize this generosity and give forth to others on their own as well. From volunteering to do the dishes to making a card for a friend who doesn’t feel well, RBC folks are about helping out.

To give selflessly – to put others before oneself – is a daunting task. But once the joy that is the product of such giving is recognized, it becomes the lifeblood of one’s daily action; it is the lifeblood of this place. This is a joyous place that depends upon gracious giving and gratitude. May the bracelets be a reminder of this joy and the camp that thrives in it.

Leave a Comment
rockbrook camp entrance sign
• Summer Camp • rbc

New Rockbrook Camp Sign

Rockbrook Summer Camp in Brevard North Carolina

When you drive down highway 276 south of Brevard, North Carolina, there’s an entrance to a summer camp. You’ve read about it in the most recent RBC newsletter, but what does it look like? Well, here it is, the new Rockbrook Camp sign! The old one couldn’t be repaired, so we asked local Brevard artist Matthew Lee Hoxit to design and build a new sign for the camp entrance. After showing him some vintage Rockbrook catalogs, and selecting one of the old fonts we liked, Matthew put together this design, found the local materials (oak and locust), hand carved the sign, and installed the whole thing. We love it, and think you will too!

Leave a Comment
Residential Summer Camp in Brevard North Carolina
• Summer Camp • rbc

Dog Trot Summer Camp Cabin

Residential Summer Camp in Brevard North Carolina

Where do you stay when you to come to camp?

Rockbrook is a summer residential camp where campers stay in simple wooden cabins. Set with wooden-framed bunk beds, and divided into two sides, most hold 8 campers and 2 counselors. Between the two sides is an area called the “dog trot.” This comes from an early domestic architectural style common in the south where a simple one-room cabin is joined to another small cabin with open space between them, a place for the dogs to trot through. Later this space between the two cabins could be enclosed, given a wooden floor, and an adjoining roof, essentially making one big cabin with two rooms, one to the left and right of a center door.

The cabins at Rockbrook are enclosed like this. The dog trot area is a place for the campers to hang wet clothes and store things. You’ll always find the cabin broom there for example. It’s neat to think that since the earliest days, Rockbrook girls have been experiencing this little bit of southern tradition.

Leave a Comment
Summer Sleepaway Camp Catalog
• Summer Camp • rbc

Summer Sleepaway Camp Memories

Summer Sleepaway Camp Catalog

“I have too many fond memories of camp to pick just one! It depends on my mood. Sometimes it is the memory of the candles reflecting in the lake at Spirit Fire. Sometimes it is all the singing we used to do (& the many, many songs I still know by heart). Sometimes it is the zany pranks and fun, kooky things that let us express ourselves so comfortably, like Kangaroo Court. And sometimes it is just the remembered pleasure of sorting mail in Goodwill on a rainy, misty day while everyone else was at lunch — and how the sound of singing would carry over from the Dining Hall. And the sound of the bells in the morning . . . Oh, just everything, then. (Except the spiders in the rafters!)”
— an Alumnae from the 1980s

P.S. This is the cover photo for the 1961 camp catalog!

Leave a Comment
summer camp costume girls
• Summer Camp • rbc

The 10 best ways to dress up at Camp

Summer Camp Dressing Up Fun

What are the best ways to dress up at summer camp? Dressing up is one of the best things about going to an all girls summer camp. There seems to always be a chance to put on something funny, become a character, or create an alter ego of some sort. Parties, skits, shows! The zanier the better too. For all of the girls attending Rockbrook, here are the top 10 fun dress up themes we love at camp.

  • 10. Crazy Hats
  • 9. Pajamas
  • 8. Super Heroes
  • 7. Backwards Clothes
  • 6. Fairies
  • 5. 70’s Disco Divas (or some other decade)
  • 4. Pirates
  • 3. Survivors
  • 2. Crazy Hair Styles
  • 1. Grannies

When it’s time to pack for camp this summer, keep these in mind. Don’t be afraid to get creative! Combine these and make a totally unique costume. What about a Super human Granny? Or a Pirate in Pajamas? The options are endless!

Leave a Comment
Kids Camp Time free
• Summer Camp • rbc

Kids Summer Program

Kids Camp Time

Is it possible to have “too much summer camp?” According to Abby Brunks, in her recent Atlanta Journal Constitution article, the answer might be yes. Ms. Brunks fears that being at summer camp can become an extension of the busy, overly scheduled life most kids experience throughout the school year. She believes that kids need a “good long break to just hang out,” and therefore cautions parents not to send their kids away to summer camp (particularly “specialty camps” apparently) for “weeks on end.”

Here at Rockbrook, we understand this concern. That’s why we build into every day a good amount of free time when campers can just “hang out.” There’s time to sit on the porch and talk, explore one of the camp streams, goof around with your cabin mates, make up a song, write a letter, or just relax. For years we’ve recognized this as one of the great opportunities of camp— it’s a chance to experience carefree summer living, to have the freedom to decide for yourself what you feel like doing, while having so many fun options easily available. That’s why coming to camp is so great. Sure at home you may be able to hang out, but you won’t have near the opportunity to try new things, meet new people, and explore nature. And because it is so refreshingly different from home or school, weeks easily seem like days.

Leave a Comment
camp is a place to grow
• Summer Camp • Jeff Carter

Camp — A place for girls to grow

Weaver Baskets at Summer Camp

Back in 1998, Kellogg’s produced a television commercial that, quite unintentionally, reminds us why a girl’s time at summer camp can be so valuable, why it really can fuel tremendous personal growth. The commercial shows a little boy reciting a “declaration” of sorts about what children need.

“We the children need the following:
We need encouragement.
We need to laugh.
We need inspiration.
We need to be read to.
We need to have self-esteem,
Love and security,
Adventure,
Discipline and Freedom.
We need to make mistakes,
Ask questions,
To imagine.
We need to win,
And sometimes we need to lose.
We need to be hugged.
We need family, friends and even foes,
And heroes.
We need nourishment.”

It’s just amazing how camp is one of those unique places that provides almost all of these ingredients. With its wide ranging program of activities, caring staff members, traditions and overall philosophy, summer camp satisfies these needs for children. We’ve often said it at Rockbrook; “camp is a place for girls to grow.”

Here’s the commercial.

Leave a Comment

Explore Topics