Camp Monterey was founded in 1945 by Miss Dollie Williams as a place where girls could live simply in the out-of-doors, growing in confidence and character, and building friendships that will last a lifetime.
About Camp
Having fun, learning skills, and gaining self-confidence are all qualities that come with life at Camp Monterey. Living in a cabin with screens for windows and without a whole lot of things makes a girl realize how lucky she is and helps her re-examine her values. She belongs to a team and will be motivated to improve her skills for the team's sake if not for her own. She will know that special events call for celebration and that making up games, dressing in costume, and having parties adds to everyone's fun! She will learn that making someone's day brighter may be as easy as giving her a smile and that so simple an act will lift her own spirits as well. She will make friends from different parts of the country and sometimes the world and learn to appreciate different ways of doing things. Her Camp friends will support the best in her and the fun and laughter they share will remain with her always, making her life richer and her spirit more resilient!
Camp Values and Philosophy
Camp Monterey was founded to provide girls with fun, outdoor experiences and the opportunity to learn valuable lessons that will make them become a better person.
Camp’s philosophy is based on:
A Simpler Life. For most girls, today's world is very complex, filled with pressures from school, athletics, and social life. Days are filled with non-stop activities and technology. Camp Monterey asks all campers to "unplug" for the summer. Putting away our electronics promotes genuine communication and encourages the girls to build positive experiences offline. Camp Monterey offers girls the opportunity to step away from the pressures of the outside world and come to know themselves better.
Spiritual and Moral Development. Solid moral principles are foundational at Camp Monterey and are encouraged daily in small acts of kindness and illustrated by stories and songs we tell and sing at our Camp church each Sunday. Our girls are encouraged to look for ways to help their cabin mates keep their cabin clean and neat. They are encouraged to smile as they greet others, to work together, to recognize and celebrate different talents in other people and encourage them at every opportunity. Nightly devotions in the cabins are a review of the day and a time for interaction with each other. Campers are given time to reflect on their day and asked to think about how they could have made the day better for someone else. Nature plays a big part in our times of stillness and worship. We believe in giving our cares over to God and living according to God's love, which is an ever-present source of wonder we see in the world around us. The changes in the sky and beauty of the natural world remind us of God's attention to the world around us and so to us as God's children. A Christian-based church service is held on Sunday mornings in an outdoor setting by the lake where all are a part. Camp Monterey welcomes and encourages girls of all denominations and faiths to join in worship.
A Sense of Accomplishment. Many of the activities at Monterey have ranks which give the girls an opportunity to not only learn a new skill but to gain a sense of growing proficiency and accomplishment as they pass each rank. A unique part of the Monterey spirit is how the girls encourage and help each other in passing the ranks. Skill and teamwork are encouraged and passed along.
Leading by Example. For the older campers and Camp staff, leading through character and by example is a central aspect of Camp life. At Camp, campers learn to lead by seeing examples of good and fun behavior all around them which means more than just being told what to do and how to act. Miss Dollie emphasized this point each year by reminding counselors and older campers that someone younger was always watching them, so they must set a good example at all times.
Are you almost disgusted with life, little man?
I'll tell you a wonderful trick
That will bring you contentment, if anything can -
Do something for somebody, quick!
Are you awfully tired with play, little girl?
Wearied, discouraged, and sick?
I'll tell you the loveliest trick in the world,
Do something for somebody, quick!
Though it rains like the rain of the flood, little man,
And the clouds are forbidding and thick,
You can make the sun shine in your soul, little man,
Do something for somebody, quick!
Though the stars are like brass overhead, little girl,
And the walks like a well-heated brick,
And our earthly affairs in a terrible whirl,
Do something for somebody, quick!
Leadership
Camp Monterey was founded in 1945 by Miss Dollie Williams to give her own daughters and their friends opportunities to develop leadership and outdoor skills in an atmosphere of kindness and fun. Located on 900 acres of woods and pastures on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, Camp Monterey has been summer home to thousands of girls who have spent their early years growing up with us.
"Miss Dollie," as everyone called her, was a tireless student of life and experience. “Happiness is what you bring with you,” she would tell campers during the fifty years she was Director of Camp Monterey. It is her wisdom and understanding of the basic needs of girls that still guide us as we continue her program nearly 80 years later.
She directed Camp with the assistance of her good friend, "Miss Sara." Together they operated Camp Monterey as a place where girls could live simply in the out-of-doors, growing in character and building friendships that last a lifetime. As time went on, Miss Dollie continued to direct Camp with the assistance of older members of Staff who would plan the daily activities, train the staff, and continue the pattern of Camp as she had envisioned it.
The Williams family continues to operate Camp today in the spirit and vision of Miss Dollie's founding. Miss Dollie's granddaughter Marion Williams now serves as Executive Director and, she, with her husband Matthew and their family, work with Camp year-round, working closely with the Senior Director and our Program Directors to plan the Camp program and hire our staff, and facilitate needed communication with parents.
During the summer, she works with Counselors and Unit Leaders as we all work to support our girls in the best way we can while strengthening what Monterey has always been about.
In addition to Camp Monterey, the Williams family maintains and oversees the operations of our brother camp, Camp Country Lad for boys, founded by Miss Dollie’s son and Marion's father, "Mr. Malcolm," Williams in 1962.
The Williams family is assisted in the operation of Camp Monterey each summer by our Senior Director, Constance Keith Alford, or “Miss Keith,” who is an experienced member of Senior Staff. "Miss Keith" has been with Camp as a camper in the 1950s, and as a counselor, a member of the Senior staff and as Director for over 25 years.
Miss Keith guides the ceremonies which help define Monterey as the special place we have been for so many girls over the years - Church on Sundays, Vespers on Sunday nights and our weekly campfires. She keeps us focused on the heart of Camp, what we are doing and why we are doing it, and those ideals Miss Dollie wanted for her girls by facilitating these special times when we stop and reflect together.
Her porch is open many afternoons for special projects with the girls or as a place to read Camp books and poetry, work on Nothing Books, or do some drawing and painting with emphasis on the life we see around us in the woods and by the lake.
During the summer, Marion and “Miss Keith” are assisted by Program Directors Shawn Means Shephard and Lillian Iversen. Both Shawn and Lillian were Monterey campers themselves, later counselors, and then members of our Sr. Staff before joining us as Program Directors. These women serve as the head of our program: running events and activities, planning campouts and out-of-camp trips, coordinating our staff, and being another go-to for Campers who need a listening ear or a hug and words of encouragement. Our Program Directors help run staff meetings and facilitate communication about our program as well as stay in close contact with Counselors and Unit Leaders about the girls in their cabins and units. They sing, they laugh, they dance. They, as we say “make it happen!” and are a friend to all.
Along with our dedicated Sr. Staff, Counselors, Assistant Counselors and Junior Counselors, Camp Monterey continues to be a place where the values and ideals of our Founding Director “Miss Dollie” are upheld and passed down to girls through stories and song. What we hear more often than anything from former campers returning to Camp, is that "nothing has changed." While the world outside Camp has changed in many ways since Camp's founding, Camp Monterey remains the same.
Location
Camp Monterey is located in the heart of the Cumberland Plateau, five miles north of Monterey, Tennessee and just 100 miles from Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. The Cumberland Plateau is a region known for its beautiful landscapes, unique biodiversity and environmental significance. With an elevation of 2,000 feet, our days are warm and our nights are cool, ideal temperatures for camping out under the stars. Camp consists of 900 acres of forest and farmlands including a private lake nestled in the midst of pine, hemlock, poplar and dogwood trees.
Facilities and the Physical Camp Plan
Camp Monterey is a rustic summer camp covering 900 acres of woods and pasture. Hiking paths, horseback trails, fresh springs and mountain streams crisscross Camp property. Camp Monterey is located very near the Obey River which provides opportunities for tubing and swimming with favorite spots like The Rock House, The Steel Bridge and The Flumes. Large rock formations, like Flint Rock Hollow, deep in forests of rhododendron and hemlock, give the girls ancient places to explore. With campout spots located throughout the property, the girls spend nights each week, cooking out, playing together in the woods, and sleeping under the stars.
The girls live in cabins which are nestled among the trees by our lake. Each one has a slightly different view of the lake and has the name of a tree native to the Cumberland Plateau. Each cabin has a tin roof (memorable for its sound when it rains), bunk beds for the girls and an interior porch for the counselors. The cabins help us keep our life simple and acknowledge that we really don't need much to have a good time and be happy.
Below the cabins and the play field lies Camp's private lake with docks for swimming, boating, and sailing. At the swimming dock, girls enjoy the rafts, diving boards, and slide. The boating docks provide canoeing and sailing to girls who want to learn new boating skills or just enjoy exploring the lake by boat on a warm and sunny day.
The first building you see as you come down the Camp road is our Camp Office. It serves as the center of Camp where we meet visitors and where campers purchase simple supplies, buy stamps for their letters, and bring their laundry to be sent to town once a week. The Health House is behind the Camp Office and is always open for any need a girl may have. Throughout the day, girls come and go freely from their cabins to the Office, especially to purchase a bandana on their way to riding at the barn.
Nestled in the woods between the "Fun Field" and our lake, the cabins are grouped according to the ages of the campers who live in them.
PeeWee camp is for second graders through fifth graders, Junior Camp for sixth and seventh grade girls and Senior Camp is for eighth and ninth graders. The J.C. cabin, for our tenth and eleventh grade girls, is tucked in the woods beside the Lodge, an open-air, timber-framed building where the campers plan parties and gather for other camp-wide activities and where there is a costume room. On the other side of Camp, near the younger camper cabins is the Dining Hall, where girls enjoy delicious, nutritious, home-cooked meals. The Dining Hall stands at one end of Craft Park with a shed for crafts nestled in the trees.
Craft, pottery and woodworking shops are nestled in the woods between the cabins and the lake and provide tools, materials and supervision for creative constructions, invention and imagination and seeing a project from its idea to its completion. Three tennis courts host pyramid tournaments for girls to practice their serves and their groundstrokes. Beyond the tennis courts is the Archery range, down a path in the woods where targets are supported by hay bales.
Across the Fun Field and uphill from the Camp is our barn where girls learn to take care of horses and gain basic horseback skills. Our riding ring is a safe place to learn basic riding skills after which the girls are allowed to take horseback trail rides through the woods and into Camp itself.
Over the hill on the Fun Field where we raise and lower the flag and play games, sits our campfire circle where all of Camp gathers for our weekly Campfires of awards and recognition. The campfire circle is in a wide open space where we can watch the stars as the sky darkens and listen to the whip-o-wills as they start their nightly serenade.
Camp Monterey since 1945