At Camp Monterey, our staff are carefully chosen for their character, personality and leadership abilities. Almost all of our Staff members have been Monterey campers, so they have grown up with us, absorbing the values and spirit that Miss Dollie founded Camp to nurture.
Camp Monterey Staff
At Camp Monterey, our staff are carefully chosen for their character, personality and leadership abilities. Almost all of our Staff members have been Monterey campers, so they have grown up with us, absorbing the values and spirit that Miss Dollie founded Camp to nurture. They know Camp well and we know them well. At Camp, campers learn to lead from example, by seeing it all around them, as much as ever being told. Leading by example is an essential part of being on the staff at Camp Monterey.
Program Directors
Our Program Directors 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.
During the summer Marion and “Miss Keith” are assisted by Program Directors Shawn Means Shephard and Lillian Iverson. Both Shawn and Lillian were Monterey campers themselves, later counselors and then members of our Sr. Staff before joining us as Program Directors.
Senior Staff
Our Sr. Staff is made of women who often were campers themselves, who love living in nature, many coming back to Camp with daughters of their own. They step away from their families and take a break from the work they do in their outside lives to give back to Camp, to provide that same experience they had as a child that they have come to value and hold so dear, to other young women. They head our departments and serve as unit leaders to the girls. They enjoy working with the counselors and their campers in all activities and outings, providing supervision and ensuring safety for all our girls.
Counselors
Our counselors who live in the cabins with the girls are college-age women who nearly all have been to Camp Monterey as campers themselves and know what draws a cabin of girls together. They encourage the building of friendships like the ones they themselves have made and teach skills that may open a new interest for a girl.
They know the satisfaction of seeing girls grow, of seeing fine traits develop and strengthen and how to make work so much fun that there is a lightness to life together that encourages the best in everyone. They also serve as activity heads, leading program activities.
Assistant Counselors (ACs) assist the counselors in the cabin and at program activities, gaining experience and assuming new responsibilities as they learn and grow along with the girls.
Kitchen Staff
Our full-time Kitchen Staff oversee the operation of our dining hall and prepare homecooked meals. The kitchen is managed by an experienced dietician with much of the cooking done by local cooks. Their hearty meals keep us all going strong, fueling our busy days with summer highlights from our surrounding farming community – fresh corn, watermelons and cantaloupes, tomatoes and zucchini – as well as the homemade cinnamon rolls and tortillas from neighbor bakers that make their way to our tables.
Our Kitchen Staff also includes a rotating group made mostly of parents who work at Camp in exchange for the tuition of their child. They live with us at Camp and help the girls set the tables and serve out our family-style meals. They organize our older girls as they wash the dishes, and they help prepare drinks, desserts and food for outings and campouts. These parents join in the fun and become an important part of our Camp family. Kitchen staff may work in exchange for the tuition of a Camper for either Camp Monterey or Camp Country Lad for boys.
Medical Staff
Our Medical Staff consists of a licensed Nurse or Doctor who takes care of all of Camp’s health needs, as well as dispensing all camper medications and any needed first aid. They live at Camp in the Health House and are available 24/7 to attend to any medical concerns, or just listen and sometimes give a hug if that is what is needed.
All medications are kept securely by the Medical Staff in the Health House and they dispense all medication directly to the campers at prescribed times when in Camp. Our Medical Staff work closely with the rest of the staff to make sure that campers are well taken care of across all areas of basic health and safety such as hydration and nutrition, insect bites and stings, good hygiene, and the bumps and scrapes that come with active life and adventure in the out-of-doors.