The following blog post was written by Beth Lewis:
I attended SMA for 3 summers (2014-2016) and they are still some of the best ones I’ve had. The fact that my parents let me fly from London to Pennsylvania for 3 consecutive summers so that I could spend it with my best friends is testament to that. I rocked up on the first day, was bombarded by people, and was pretty overwhelmed. It wasn’t like anything I had experienced before - these strangers were friendly. From that point I had nothing but fun and KNEW I’d go back as a councillor.
Fast forward a few years to this year and I realized I had a summer to spare. Knowing that you have to be 21 to be a councillor at SMA and having just turned 19, my camp friend Mirena Medina texted me and told me to apply for another camp councillor role at a different camp in Pennsylvania. Within 2 hours I’d applied and soon enough we both got job offers, flew out to meet her and started our summer adventure.
Beth and Mirena as SMA Campers
Having only experience camp life at SMA, this camp was a SHOCK to the system. They had hundreds of kids, hundreds of staff and hundreds of acres. It was an incredible summer filled with highs, lows, blood, sweat and tears. Having so many people around camp meant you were constantly meeting knew people and there was an abundance of people you had things in common with. But it also meant that it took about a month to be able to walk around and confidently know enough people. It also took longer to form deeper connections because there were so many people to get to know.
No matter how different the camps were, councillor dancing stayed consistent throughout.
The work Mirena and I did definitely gave us a new perspective on our time at SMA. It made us appreciate the intimate, family-feel so much more and we are just glad we got to spend the summer together because next time we do it will hopefully be Summer 2021 back at SMA!!