Shampoo Party
So by now you have seen pictures online of boys playing in dirt and being covered in shaving cream while flying down the slip and slide, horseback riding, mountain biking on muddy trails, or you see the photos of our 40 foot ice cream sundae (which is about 10 seconds of actual eating, and then turns into a huge ice cream war). I bet when you see these pictures (especially of the latter) your mind reflects back upon those beautifully clean sheets that you so lovingly placed in your son’s trunk before he left for camp. At this point you are trying your hardest not to imagine the boy you saw in the pictures slathered in dairy climbing into those pristinely clean sheets without washing himself off properly.
Welcome to the battle.
We all know that boys love to get dirty. Our job at camp is to teach these guys appropriate times to be dirty. But also times that it is unacceptable to be dirty such as sleeping times, or eating times, or after bathing times!
You have described the dirt problem well, Dan. So what is your solution? Well we have quite a few tools (or weapons) for this battle. The basics (less aggressive tools) are things such as our health check list and cabin clean-up. Cabin cleanup is pretty obvious, the campers are assigned to a particular cabin chore (sweeping the porch, cleaning sinks, showers, etc.) and they get points for each well cleaned item. The cabin who wins the most points at the end of the session gets a cabin pizza party after evening activity. As you know, your boys love pizza so this has been a very successful reward! On to the health checklist, our counselors pull each of their campers aside each night to ask hygiene questions: Did you shower? Brush teeth? Are your shoes dry? Do you have any bug bites? If so, let’s get the nurse to check them at breakfast tomorrow. There is a checklist with each camper’s names for every day of camp on these.
But Dan (you might be thinking), what if they did get in the shower but didn’t use soap or shampoo? We certainly have to respect our camper’s privacy but need to be able to ensure that they are getting the necessary cleaning accomplished. What are we to do about this dilemma?
Now we get to our more aggressive tools. I introduce to you the Shampoo party. Free swims are a huge part of camp and the guys absolutely love them. Part of our dock safety involves a color coded tag system where each camper checks in with the head of swimming to make sure that everyone is present and accounted for. It is at this precise moment that we have staff ready with a healthy dollop of shampoo. They are already wet, and as they approach the cabins we have two other staff with hoses for rinsing them down. For our 40 ft. ice cream sundae night we actually go through the process twice. The rinsing counselors are there to “enlighten” our boys that shampoo doesn’t always have to be used on hair and that they need to use it on arms, legs, and especially underarms. This tactic is followed up by a regular shower where we certainly hope and lovingly ask that they use regular soap to finish the job of a thorough cleaning. Other aggressive tools are the “change your shirt day”, and the Line kings (not to be confused with the Lion King) who pull and wash all clothing that hangs on the drying lines (especially after a good rain) in a sort of laundry blitzkrieg to be folded and returned to cabins that evening.
We are always searching for creative cleaning ideas, and these mentioned are definitely a work in progress. If you parents know of any other effective means of group cleaning please let us know. We are certainly fighting the battle, but we need reinforcements!
Dan Singletary
Timberlake Director
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