I'll let you in on how Visiting Day feels from our side, something I doubt you will hear many (or any) other camps saying out loud. But I will.
We sweat it a little. Come on I was nervous as heck.
Not because I think things will go super wrong or anything like that. It’s more because we spend all summer building something, and Visiting Day is when we find out whether it’s coming through.
It's the day when the most important people in our campers’ world walk through the gate to see it for themselves. So sure, there's a pull to make everything look perfect. But "perfect" can look different to different people.
Perfect, for me, means a day that feels as close as we can get to the summer the kids have actually been living. That's a delicate balance, because the feeling of a summer is a hard thing to hand someone in an afternoon.
The kids feel it too. They want you to get it, to really understand what these last few weeks have been. What's been happening. What a day here really means. Trust me the bunks aren’t always that clean.
And the truth is, we can watch a kid have the summer of their life and still not fully know what they love about it.
It can feel like an impossible thing to put into words, even when it seems obvious. Camp is all motion and energy, big moments and a lot of quieter time built around friendship, and the stories tend to blur together.
Visiting Day is the day to find out, because the kids tell you themselves.
They Wanted to Go Everywhere
The day runs simply. We open every activity, keep the schedule loose, and let the kids lead.
Wherever a camper wants to take their parents, that's where the day goes. Everything is open, so what you get is the real deal.
With the whole place open to them, where did the kids go? Just about everywhere.
Paddleboards and canoes on the water.
Pickleball out in the woods on the new courts.
The high ropes course, archery, and a lot of tennis.
The Studio, where parents ended up bedazzling things alongside their kids and got to see half a summer of artwork on the walls.
Small crowds formed. It was all spread pretty evenly across the camp, and from what I could tell, every kid's tour looked a little different.
Watching them scatter like that feels like proof of something we already knew, already know.
Camp is the same place for every kid, and a different place for each of them. It's why no two tours looked alike. Each kid lives it a little differently, and loves different parts of it.
The Parents
And of course, K&E parents did what K&E parents do. They said yes.
Yes to the paddleboard, yes the high ropes, yes to slingshots, yes to whatever their kid wanted next, because their kid wanted to share it.
You could see it in the home bases, too. Families set up a blanket and a couple of chairs on the grass, a favorite snack waiting, and their camper circling back between activities before running off again.
We have the best families for this.
The whole day only works because they show up ready to be led wherever their kid wants to go.
Visiting Day looks wildly different from one camp to the next. Some run it waaaaaay differently than we do, and every year there’s some click-baity piece about some place doing something over the top. That’s a rabbit hole for another day.
For us, the key is to think a lot about the summer, and try our hardest not to overthink this day at all. Because Visiting Day only works when three things are happening at once.
- Camp loves having kids here.
- Kids love being at camp.
- Parents love that camp loves kids and kids love being at camp.
Follow that? I hope so.
Because it’s an enormous amount of trust parents put in us, and we don’t take a bit of it for granted.
So yes, I sweat Visiting Day a little (lot?). But only about whether what the kids love about camp will make its way to the parents.
And watching them lead adults around to each and every part they love answered the question.
You got this,
Jack
PS - We let everyone know this on Visiting Day, but have some big plans for this year when it comes to K&E gear (we're sending it all year).
Will have more about this soon but you can check out some of the details here: A T-Shirt for this Summer, A Blanket for All Year
