Nanny Camp is not a place. It is not a person. It is all of you.
I have been reading every single one of our camper posts, emails, texts, and surveys this week. The sappy ones, the reflective ones, the ones where you tell the internet how much you love this thing we do together, the ones where you tell me what we got wrong this year.
I have to be honest, I have not been chill about a single one of them. I am home, my feet are still tired, my heart is still full, and I want to say some things before real life pulls me all the way back in.
Three years ago, Nanny Camp was an idea I was carrying around in the back of my head at a conference. A handful of nature-loving nannies in the woods for a weekend. That was the whole vision. Then Shenandoah pulled me aside on the first day of that conference and told me she had been dreaming about a summer camp for nannies. What I did not know then, and what I know now after watching 100+ people share one lake for three days, is how far past the two of us this thing was always going to travel.
The best decision we made this year
Adding an Inclusivity Advisor to camp was the single best decision we could have made, and that is because Peach was the one in the role. They went above and beyond our wildest expectations. Their presence did not just help me get through the weekend. It helped every single camper feel welcome, feel loved, and feel safe. They were at check-in, in the circles, and in the quiet conversations that nobody else saw. When campers were asked afterward what could have made camp feel more inclusive, more than one of them wrote some version of "make more Peach."
Here is the takeaway I keep coming back to: camp did not get safer because we wrote a better policy. It got safer because it wasn't just one person's job to notice who needed noticing—it was a community effort. Everyone looked out for each other, and that collective care meant every camper had someone to go to. That is a shared responsibility, not just a role, and it's something I want to cultivate in every gathering I ever run again.
The part I was scared about
Now let me tell you the part I have not said out loud yet.
I was scared going into this year. We had more first-time campers this year than we had campers at all in our first full year. Half of the people at that lake had never been before. They were walking into the middle of a whole lot of people who already knew each other, who already had inside jokes and cabin traditions and their people. I knew that. I worried about it for months. I worried about it in the car on the way there.
We are not perfect, and we never will be. We grow every year, and honestly that is one of the best parts of this. But I am proud to say that I was most surprised, most impressed, and absolutely blown away by the new friends I got to meet this week. Some of you I had known from social media for years and was finally hugging in person. Some of you I was seeing for the very first time. You showed up whole. You pulled up a chair to whatever table you wanted. You jumped in the lake with your clothes on. You stayed at the craft house past 2:30 in the morning finishing a beading project with people you had met 48 hours earlier. You made me fall in love with this camp all over again.
On friendships, and the ones that look hard to break into
Some people will not come back, and I know that. I got to be in their space for at least that one weekend, and I am grateful they took the chance. I hope they left with friendships they did not have before.
I know some people look at the friendships that come back to the lake year after year and see something hard to break into. What I have seen, time and time again, is that the people who arrive open to new people and excited to build new friendships end up finding their people. That is why campers come back. Those friendships are deep and they are valuable, and every person who has one knows exactly how important it is to bring more people into the fold. Watching new friendships form each year and returning friendships keep growing is one of my favorite things about camp.
When we asked afterward, every single camper who answered said they felt safe. Nearly every one said camp was inclusive of their language, their culture, and their background. Most said they left more energized to go back to work than when they arrived. Those numbers are not mine. They belong to the people who made them true for each other. I am so grateful for what this camp can do, pulling people from all over the country into one lake for a long weekend and turning them into a community.
What camp actually is
Every so often someone tells me that camp is me, or that I created it. This week someone wrote to me that the way campers care for one another is an extension of me, and that camp gave them a place that felt made for them for the first time in their life. I read that in my car and cried. And I still want to gently set it down.
I created the space for camp, and I create the opportunity for camp every year. But I am not camp, and I do not create camp.
Camp is created by every single person who chooses to show up. Who chooses to see the good in others. Who chooses to give grace, to say sorry, to lend a helping hand, to give a hug, to have the hard conversation, to stand up for what is right, to laugh our asses off, and to be in community with some of the most incredible people I have ever had the honor of knowing.
Camp is the person who sat down at the mess hall table across from a stranger. Camp is the returner who noticed a first-timer standing alone at the snack and chat and walked over. Camp is the foam party and the lantern release and the campfire conversation where someone said out loud the thing they had never told anyone in their industry. Camp is the counselor who found an extra blanket at midnight. Camp is the camper who waded into the lake on Monday morning to collect every single lantern we let go the night before.
That is what camp is. It is not me. It is not SJ Riding Camp, as much as I love that place. It is all of you who continue to show up and say yes, each and every year, and who make camp into an amazing, unique thing that teaches all of us something new. About ourselves. About our community. About the world, the earth, nature, and one another.
And most importantly, it reminds every one of us that we belong, that we are loved, and that we are seen for our whole selves. It reminds us that joy and fun and play matter at any age. It reminds us that caring for the caregiver is one of the most underserved and most necessary needs in our society if we want to help raise well-rounded humans. Nannies spend their days regulating other people's nervous systems. Nobody is scheduled to regulate theirs. For four days a year, at one lake in Connecticut, somebody is.
What comes home with you
I watched the light come back into the eyes of caregivers who arrived so burnt out. I watched connections being made and light switches flipping on that are going to carry people into their next year. One returning camper told me that the job they have right now, the best job of their life, came from a connection they made at camp. Another said the scholarship that got them to camp two years ago changed the direction of their life.
And the part I am most excited about is that the energy, the love, and the belonging from Nanny Camp does not have to stop at the borders of Connecticut. Every one of these nannies is going back out into their own community with a newfound sense of ownership over their career, with belonging, with joy in their heart, ready to bring someone else in and expand the love. That is how this grows. Not through me. Through you, back home, telling the nanny at the playground that there is a place for them too.
One of you told me you think of yourself as a museum of everyone who has ever loved you, and that you hope camp gets to be a permanent exhibit. I hope so too. For all of us.
Because Nanny Camp is not a place. Nanny Camp is not a person. Nanny Camp is all of you.
And I am so grateful to be the conduit.
A special thanks to our sponsors:
With so much gratitude,
Reagan Camp Director (aka Mom)
Want to know more about Nanny Camp, sponsor a camper, or find out when 2027 registration opens? Reach out at marketing@adventurenannies.com.
