Camp Lenox Sleepaway Camp, Otis, Massachusetts

The programme is split into five core areas — individual sports, team sports, adventure, creative arts and waterfront — and every camper experiences all of them. Activity Instructional Clinics are the elective half: campers choose weekly what they want to focus on and work in a structured clinic with college-level coaches on fundamentals, technique and progression. A basketball clinic works through ball-handling, footwork, shooting, defence and team play before putting it together in game-like drills; a beginners’ waterskiing clinic starts with equipment and body position and most campers are getting up on their own by the end of the week. Group recreational activities are pre-assigned by grade level so that nobody misses an area they would not have picked themselves. Every camper plays in an age-appropriate intramural league, and grade-level teams compete in inter-camp tournaments at home and away. Boys and girls follow separate daily programmes of electives and group periods; from the eighth grade upwards they share age-appropriate evening activities, more often the older the group.

Tuition and the supplemental fee cover the full camp experience: canteen, day trips, laundry and towel service, all regular activities and instruction, and evening programmes and special events. Bus and airport transport, extended trips and private one-to-one instruction are charged separately and are listed among the extras.

Campers sleep in spacious bunks, recently renovated with pine paneling, with electricity, showers, sinks, toilets and ample cubby space for clothes. All girls’ bunks have their own shower facilities; boys aged 7 to 13 also have showers in their cabins, while boys aged 14 to 16 use a shower house beside theirs. The staff-to-camper ratio inside the cabins is about one to three, and cabin counsellors sit with their campers at meals.

The whole camp eats together and meals are served family style, with cabin counsellors at the table. The menu focuses on fresh food and is extensive, and a restaurant-style fruit or salad bar comes with every meal. There is a children’s menu for the pickiest eaters, and special dietary needs are accommodated with advance notice.

Individual and team sports run from basketball, tennis, baseball and flag football to gymnastics and aerial silks, with coaches for each. The waterfront on Shaw Pond has swimming, boating, waterskiing and an inflatable water trampoline. Adventure brings a zipline through the trees, a ropes course and group challenges, and creative arts cover drawing, painting and studio work. Off-campus trips are scheduled through the summer by age group. The calendar is built around special events: Torch Games with team events and fireworks on the fourth of July; Camp Birthday with its lake dunking, mini marathon and carnival; Club L and Prom for the teen camp; the Big Brother and Big Sister pairings that run across age groups; a four-day Color War between the Black and Orange teams that opens with a secret reveal and runs through the Classic Relay, Rope Burn, Hatchet Hunt and Trifecta; and an end-of-camp banquet with candle-lighting and rock-laying ceremonies.

The camp occupies 180 acres of Berkshire mountainside overlooking Shaw Pond, laid out for sports and activity: a gym, courts, fields, dedicated activity spaces, gathering spaces and the bunks, with a waterfront on the pond. Facilities are improved continually. The medical building is staffed by five live-in full-time nurses, a part-time medical assistant, a full-time medical driver and physicians who rotate through camp each week, so there is always a physician in residence; the regional medical centre is about thirty minutes away.

Camp Lenox has been running since 1918 and is accredited by the American Camp Association. It is large enough to feel busy and small enough to stay personal, with a staff-to-camper ratio of around one to three. Electives are non-competitive and skill-based; competition lives in league play, inter-camp fixtures and tournaments, and is pitched by age — a friendly kickball league for one group, three-on-three basketball under the lights for another. The camp is non-denominational, with an optional Friday evening Shabbat service and transport to local churches. Full-summer campers have three scheduled phone calls home and half-summer campers two; parents send one-way emails that are printed and delivered to the camper’s mailbox, letters are written during the daily rest hour, and photographs from camp are posted online every day. Official athletic jerseys are required for inter-camp fixtures and tournament games; otherwise campers wear casual sports clothes.