My postcards home from summer camp are absolutely pitiful. I know because my mom saved them for me. I begged my parents to come and take me home … and SOON. Everyone was so mean to me.
And yet, I persevered. I kept going to day camps and overnight camps. I swam, rode a horse, shot archery and .22s, hiked and learned to make lanyards. We had water balloon fights, camped in the woods, located the constellations and figured out which berries weren’t edible.
I loathed some of the activities but I wouldn’t have experienced any of them unless I went to camp. I even did a summer as a Boy Scout camp counselor and eventually sent my own son off to camps.
Those were the kind of camps that David Hansburg attended as a kid.
“At traditional New England camps, kids were exposed to all kinds of activities and sports and a large variety of programs. They developed independence and social skills,” he says.
When it came time to send their three kids to camp, Hansburg and his wife found there were few general interest camps available.
“One of the reasons my wife, Holly, and I created the Rocky Mountain Day Camp was because most of the camps in Boulder were specialty camps. We just didn’t think that was the best option. We had three children and it was hard to find a camp that all of them would enjoy,” says Hansburg, whose “other” job is director of athletics at Colorado School of Mines in Golden.
He noted that there is a lot of pressure on kids during the school year to focus on single activities. “Camp should be that place where you discover yourself. It’s where you are respected as your own person and learn about being part of something bigger than yourself,” he says.
The Hansburgs created Rocky Mountain Day Camp (RMDC) as a traditional summer camp for boys and girls, ages 5-15, with locations at elementary schools in Boulder and Superior.
One week is too short
From the start, RMDC has done a lot of things differently than other camps.
“One problem with many camps is that you can’t do them for very long, usually just a week,” Hansburg says. “It’s in that second week when they really start to blossom.”
The average camper stays at RMDC for five weeks, though some kids attend for 10 weeks. Each two-week summer session has a different program that doesn’t repeat. “Staying longer creates a long-term atmosphere,” he says.
The camp is totally unplugged with no devices allowed. “The point is that you have to look up, not down. You have to talk to people and learn how to relate,” Hansburg says.
Girls, boys and ‘bunks’
The camp doesn’t lump kids into one big group and divide it by interests. Campers spend the day with the same counselors and kids the same age and gender. There is a good reason for the separation, Hansburg says. “Take football as an activity. If you put 8-year-old boys and girls together you don’t get as good participation from the girls. In sports especially, girls are more apt to participate and lead independent of the boys,” he says.
Each group has a room as a gathering spot called a “bunk” — a nod to traditional sleepover summer camp tradition.
However, that doesn’t mean that the age groups don’t mingle at the camp. “We do lunch together every day. We do Color Wars with teams for competitions that are like field day at school. On Wacky Wednesdays we do out-of-the-box activities that the kids choose. That builds a sense of camp community. The requirement for Wacky Wednesday is that the group has to perform a skit about the activity they chose,” Hansburg says.
As campers mature they move up. “Kids really look forward to ‘graduating’ to the next group,” he says. Those going into eighth or ninth grade can become a CIT (Counselor-in-Training) and help staff with younger campers for part of the day. The camp maintains a fairly high 6-to-1 camper-to-staff ratio.
From baseball to rocketry
To offer a diverse program — including archery, arts and crafts, baseball, drama, rocketry and music — RMDC operates two campuses at Heatherwood Elementary School in Boulder and Eldorado K-8 in Superior. The camps have full use of the schools’ fields, courts, playgrounds, gyms, cafeterias, auditorium stages and other facilities.
Except when Boulder campers leave to swim at local pools including Scott Carpenter Pool, Spruce Pool and the North Boulder Recreation Center, the camp doesn’t have a feature common to many programs: Long, hot bus rides on field trips to public facilities such as museums. The time is invested in activities with the camp community.
RMDC is a full day with optional pre-camp and after-camp activities to make life easier on parents.
The camp also has an ongoing community because some children attend summer after summer. “We have kids who are entering their ninth or 10th season. They’ve been coming since they were 5 years old,” Hansburg says.
One of the highlights of each summer for Hansburg is seeing how brand new attendees — kids who’ve never gone to a general camp — get a natural boost in self-esteem as they learn new skills and make friends on their own.
“Their parents come to me and say: ‘What are you doing to my child? My kid is so happy. They’re glowing.’”
