Re: Camp: A Few Notes
A Letter from the Camp Director
Dear Parents,
We are so excited that your child will be joining us in just a few weeks at Summer Sunshine Sleepaway (aka Get The Kids Out of My Fucking Hair for Two Months) Camp.
We have a full roster of enriching arts programming, sports, entertainment, fun and excitement planned for them while they unplug and reconnect with nature over the next eight weeks!
But first, a few logistics.
Please read this letter and its Appendices and Addendums in its entirety, preferably in one sitting not interrupted by your kids, your aging mother’s doctors, your editors, your dating apps, or your noisy cat who apparently wants to be fed again. Silence those notifications and set some time aside for yourself! (We recommend three to seven hours).
FORMS
Please login to your CAMPMINDER account and fill out all forms. If you don’t have an account yet, registration takes approximately 60 days and requires a unique four-step verification process, so get to it!
Yes we know there are 113 forms and that they have to be signed by both parents and notarized and that you filled all of these forms out last year, but practice makes perfect! Persist.
The “Favorite Things” form is new this year – this is our way of preparing to greet your child with fond memories and we have found that it helps tremendously in the event of homesickness. The form requires 10+ favorite things (at least one per year since birth), plus first words, and any related childhood traumas around Disney movies with deceased parents. We want to make sure we don’t have any tears or tantrums!
The Medical Form must include all allergies and food aversions. Fears, whether realized or not, should be indicated under “Potential Triggers.”
Once all 113 forms are filled out, notarized, and signed in blood, please make 37 copies of each and scan them individually into CAMPMINDER. Bulk scans will not be accepted.
Camp Forms (all 113) must be submitted by May 5th or your camper will not be permitted to attend camp. (Your deposit and all payments will be kept though).
We realize that the labor of filling out forms (and packing and labelling all clothes, see below for more on that) will fall onto the camper’s mother even though she has a demanding full time job at which she is paid ½ of what her male colleagues make, and that she also carries all the invisible labor of the household – cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, medical appointments, fixer of nightmares, finder of missing retainers, airpods, and earrings, and that she also takes care of her aging mother, but we know you will make time to fill these forms out in a timely and careful manner!
CLOTHING AND PACKING LIST
Please refer to the attached packing list in Addendum D3 – all campers must come with 14 pairs of every piece of clothing: tops, shorts, tops that appear to be dresses, socks, underwear, and bras that appear to be tops. Yes we realize you will have to go to Target and empty their multi-pack section but do what you must. We will only do laundry every 14 days and you don’t want your child wearing dirty clothes now do you! You do not!
Every piece of clothing must be labeled with first and last name; gender identity, preferred name, and pronouns. This includes socks too. We realize the label may be larger than the sock but you’ll figure it out.
Labels must be uniform size and we prefer these from Camp Labels R Us (click here for 10% off 200).
Towels and sheets and pillows are not provided. Please pack two sets of sheets, two towels, and one hypo-allergenic pillow.
Our beds are longer than your average bed so you need to purchase custom made sheets from this website: Expensive Sheets for Camp That Your Kids will Never Use Again.
Stuffed animals and comfort items are encouraged. Please refer to Appendix C2 for a list of permitted stuffed animals. Endangered species are not permitted. Come on people.
Emotional support pets are not permitted. Last year we had an incident with little Tommy’s emotional support hamster and we can’t really talk about that here but take our word for it, leave them at home.
ARRIVAL AT CAMP
Please plan to arrive at camp between 10am and 10:17am on Monday. We value efficiency and punctuality! Early arrivals and latecomers will not be tolerated. You need to set a good example for your campers!
If you arrive late, you will be escorted to an alternative drop off area a few miles down the road where you can sit quietly in your hot car and think about your mistakes and why you can’t seem to do anything right.
You can accompany your camper to the bunk and help them “set up” their cabins. Then it’s back to I95 which is still bumper to bumper traffic!
VISITING DAYS
Please be aware that visiting days are every two weeks on Sundays just to make sure you have no real stretch of time to relax.
Sunday traffic tends to be the worst day of the summer for traffic so that’s why we’ve scheduled it then.
Campers whose parents do not come for every visiting day tend to feel abandoned and scarred and you wouldn’t want that now would you!
CAMP POT LUCK!
Don’t forget about the Camp Potluck on the last day of camp – please be sure to bring enough of your culturally appropriate dish for the entire camp (425 of us) to share!
We at Summer Sunshine can’t wait to welcome you – between the hours of 10am and 10:17 am – on Monday June 29th! If you have any questions, please login to your CAMPMINDER account and send us a message. Messages will be answered in the order in which they are received and we can’t guarantee a reply before October 2027.
In Camp We Trust,
Marshall Landman
Camp Director
this needs to be a Shouts & Murmurs 😂
I am actually email deep into these actual Campminder notifications for both my kids, and when I got to the parentheses, I had to do a triple take, like wtf? This is spot on!!! With the amount of money we pay to send them there, I'm about ready to send them an invoice for every billable hour it takes to do all this!
Right now, I'm dealing with having to pay another co-pay to my kids' pediatrician because they can't understand why, after conducting a full physical, I need a separate letter for each kid stating that the doctor (not me) gives my kids permission to be administered over-the-counter drugs, including Tylenol or bug bite lotion, when in years past they only needed me to sign the form.