u/apatheticpeep

Hi! I worked at a KY 4H camp this summer, this was a camp I camped at and volunteered at but this summer I learnt so much no only about other 4H camps in the state but tidbits about the way other 4H camps work in different states! This was so interesting to me and I was wondering if any other staff from different states had info and all because I looove hearing about other camps. I worked at a different camp last summer and am looking into other camps because I just love experiencing camp in new ways. Anyways a brief synopsis on the KY 4H camp

Okay, this is a voice memo turned into a voice recording. So, I worked at one of the Kentucky 4-H camps. There are four total in Kentucky.

Each of them service a different section of Kentucky. So, the one I worked at serviced a big square of the south central/east. There's one that hits the north central/east, one that hits like the slice of the area just west of central Kentucky, and then a camp that services all of the far western Kentucky section.

My camp was the smallest, serviced the least amount of kids just by the nature of the size of the counties and the amount of counties. Regardless, KY 4H camp works a little bit differently than how I've heard other 4-H camps work. So, for example, as staff we don't sleep in the cabins and the kids' behaviour is solely controlled by the volunteers. There adult volunteers and teen volunteers. They were called the counsellors. So, 16, 17, and then 18 plus.

We were called staff, not counsellors, and we ran our staff classes. Staff classes were high ropes, low ropes, boating, recreation, nature, outdoor living skills, rilfes, archery, and swimming. Then the counties ran their own classes. So, for example, there was fishing, volleyball, basketball, indoor cooking, outdoor cooking, or more specialized ones based on the volunteers that were available.

The camp ran from the first week of June to the last week of July. The camp could either be 4 or 5 days, one county did 4 days but the last day they left in the afternoon rather than the morning so it was a 3 days of classes week even if they were only there for 4 days. It was the “5 day week that left early” because thinking of it as a 4 day week just felt wrong. Each week was controlled by the counties, essentially. So, a couple weeks were just one county and then the majority of weeks had multiple counties. I think the most was six counties for one week. So, everything is determined by the agents.

Things like evening programmes, the schedule, and how the kids behaved were all based on those agents. So, for example, evening programmes, we had our set evening programmes that the camp created and could do. So, there were ones like party bingo or there was one called Jumanji and then there were messy games, which every week did.

So, messy games was very staff-led. Basically, on a field, each team would be assigned to a staff. We all lined up and there'd be different little relays and competitions where we'd use paint or shaving cream or one of them had cheese balls.

At the very end, everyone would get their colour powder, get all covered in colour powder, and then they'd go down a slip and slide. So, every other night, other than messy games, we did this thing called sallying. I don't know how far sallying goes in the 4-H world, but I'll explain it just in case some people don't know what it is.

But basically, there's a shelter house. In the shelter house, there's this little track, a running track almost. You'll split the kids and some will go in the middle, some will go on the outside, and then they go up to each other and ask, “Do you want to sally with me?” the person will hopefully say yes. Then they'll skip around the circle holding hands until they get to the spot where they asked and then split off.

There's also line dances during that time. So, say, the very standard ones like the easy peasy cupid shuffle or the harder ones like Chattahoochee or one of my favorites, Fishin’ in The Dark. Sometimes we created our own dances. So, there were Dancing Queen, Intergalactic, Mr. Weatherall, In the Navy, etc. It's kind of surprising we did that one. We did “Bring ‘em Out”, which I know is less common now. We did Family Force 5 “Wobble” since sadly the OG wobble got cut. So, little line dances for that. I think one of my favourite was Copperhead Road because we had a hollow stage at the front and all the staff who were at that sally would go up there and do it. When you would do the part where you put your full weight forward, it sounded so amazing.

Back to the point though, there was also a country store, which all the profits from that store went back to 4-H that was tax-free. There was little different 4-H branded stuff and then also some basic necessities, things like contact little holders or goggles or earplugs, nose plugs for swimming, contact solution, toothbrushes. I think usually people give out toothbrushes for free. They were also snacks. Those were little options for the country store.

There were 4 blocks of classes, they could be last anywhere between 45min to 1 hr 10 min. After classes, half the camp (they were split into teams so like even or odd teams” would go to free swim and then the other half would do a county decided activity. One county had guest speakers, some counties had “Team Time” , and other counties would just have playground time.

Each camping group had different traditions. One group, had this thing called snowball where at the end of sally, they would do a little middle school kind of vibe of slow dance, holding each other's shoulders to these slow songs. Then they'd say snowball and you'd switch it to a different person.

Another one had a pie smashing tradition. Just little things. With that, each 4-H camp in Kentucky has different traditions and different vibes.

Some 4-H camps have a very heavy emphasis on the spirit stick while my camp didn't. Some of them do a lot of skits. My camp didn't do many skits.

Camps had different versions of line dances (most did the “Bring ‘em Out” dance to like teenage mutant ninja turtles, one camp got in trouble for teaching Mr. Weatherall whoops! Our fault), different evening programmes, different staff meetings, and even different ways they ran camp in general. We did have very long staff meetings like notoriously long ones. Mostly I think we just had our like hangout and talk about our fay time during the staff meeting rather than breaking and doing that separately. We also had fun traditions to hype each other up . Okay that should be everything

I got a pair of earthrunners before the summer just because I wanted to try them out and I work at summer camps so I think that's always the best place to try out new shoes lol. I had previously been kinda on and off with barefoot shoes because honestly I wore them for a summer last year on accident as I thought they were just a different design for water shoes and I was working at a summer camp where I'd be in a lake all the time so yeah. Anyways, my earthrunners fit correctly when I first started wearing them but now my feet are like all the way at the heel and all the way to the toes. Anyone know why this might have happened?