May 2025
For most parents, summer camp is something we think about roughly twice a year: in a semi-panicked frenzy when signups open in the depths of winter, and in a semi-panicked frenzy as we dig through emails and assemble backpacks the night before the first camp starts.
For camp directors, the frenzy begins much earlier, and thankfully involves far less panic. In fact, there’s a lot families can learn by understanding what goes on behind the scenes as camps gear up for their busiest season of the year.
Emily Behr, Director of Camp & Outdoor Learning at Piedmont Wildlife Center, agreed to give us the inside scoop. Piedmont Wildlife Center runs summer camps out of three Triangle locations along with homeschool, afterschool, and school break programming year-round.
While professionals like Behr gear up to deliver a safe and fun summer for campers, families can also start taking steps now to make the transition from school to camp less panicked and more fun for everyone.
What does a camp director do?
Behr: My job is to create a level of consistency across all our camps, as well as make sure that the program managers have all that they need to make sure that they can support our counselors, who are our front-line staff. So it’s working alongside them, as well as being in camp—I love to go and get to know our campers, support our counselors, play games, and kind of just be part of the camp experience.
In addition to that, at Piedmont, we’re trying to create intentional opportunities for environmental education in a way that feels really organic and fun and engaging for kids. We have a huge library of resources around activities that help kids connect more deeply with nature, so [I’m focused on] how do we give our counselors all the tools they need so that they can make the most of these opportunities and make sure that our campers are building relationships and also building a stronger relationship with nature.
What are you doing now to get ready for summer?
Behr: We do a lot of off-season programming, so we consistently have campers on site throughout the entire calendar year, but it does look a lot different for us in the summer because that’s when we have the most campers.
The off-season is a time for us to kind of refine and take a little time to plan and prepare. After every season, we go through all of our supplies and do an inventory, finding what do we have, what do we need? I always try to ask the counselors at the end of each season, ‘What was something that you wish you had?’ so that we can have it for the future.
We want to make sure our grounds are looking nice and that kids feel safe, so that means getting rid of as much poison ivy as possible, making sure that trails are free of debris, maintaining the grounds, and thinking about how we can constantly improve as a camp. That goes for everything from the site to the supplies to our check-in process, our signage—all these kinds of things that we just constantly want to get better at.
May is kind of our [time to] take a breath, and then June is go go go. We start our staff training and then camp starts, and we are off to the races!
How do you approach counselor training?
Behr: We have our big staff training in June. We use that week to think about every possible thing that we can arm them with so that they can be successful, while also making it super fun. Play is a huge part of what we do here at camp, and so we want to model that as leadership staff. We want to make sure that everything that we’re talking through, we’re doing it in a way that they feel it, they’re able to be a part of it, and that means playing the games and doing the activities along with us, in addition to talking about those more serious things that need to be covered to prepare for camp.
We are really lucky to have a lot of returning counselors who come back year after year. Those veteran counselors are great, because they come with the knowledge of past years, and they can really build on that and help mentor some of these newer counselors.
Are there things families can be doing now to prepare their kids for a good camp experience?
Behr: Familiarizing yourself with the camp as much as possible! We send out a lot of information ahead of time, and I know you’re getting it from all the camps, so as a parent, you’re like, ‘Oh gosh, I’m going to deal with that the day before when I’m starting to think about it.’ But kids are thinking about it, especially if it’s their first time doing a specific type of camp. They might have a lot of questions about it.
If the website has stories or visuals of what camp might look like, [I recommend] talking through that with your child, and then kind of offering up an opportunity for them to talk through any reservations they may have. Don’t be afraid to communicate to camp staff and ask those questions. Who knows, they might have availability to take you around and show you behind the scenes. Or, a lot of camps, like ours, take place in public parks, so you can just take your kids on a Saturday to walk around and maybe go for a hike. From my own experience, the more familiar my kids feel about the environment, the safer or the more at ease they’ll feel about the new experience.
Camp social medias are also really fun. A lot of times they’ll do introductions of their counselors and give you a glimpse into a day at camp. All those kinds of things are great tools to be able to get your camper really excited about the experience.
Big thanks to Emily Behr and Piedmont Wildlife Center for giving us a behind the scenes glimpse at the run-up to summer camps! Find more tips for gearing up for camp in our article on how to Get Organized for a Successful Summer.
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