Every once in awhile, when people are looking forward to coming to Mini-Yo-We, they notice a peculiarity in our summer schedule. Our programs start a week later than every other camp that we know of. The ‘industry standard’ for camps in Ontario is to start their summer programs the first week of July but at Camp Mini-Yo-We, we start it on second.
Why?
Our mission at Camp Mini-Yo-We is to develop tomorrow’s leaders through life-changing adventures in God’s creation. Training and equipping future generations of leaders is at the heart of what we do. We take the extra week at the beginning of the summer to develop our staff so that they are ready to better serve your kids.
We want to serve your kids very well, which is why we forgo a week of programming to ensure that our summer staff are ready to be at their best. It’s a contrarian decision because that first week of July is typically characterized by great weather and is therefore a preferred time for some parents to send their kids. We put such a premium on equipping our staff to be physically, emotionally and spiritually prepared that we actually turn away families for this highly sought week of the summer.
Like most camps, the core of our summer staff team consists of senior high school students. For us, having only four or five days between the end of school and the beginning of kids arriving for summer camp simply isn’t enough! We believe that the extra week gives us quality-time to spend with our staff to help them grow more as leaders and to plan and prepare for the summer.
In the same way that a university hospital typically provides higher levels of service because the purpose is to provide you care and educate doctors, Camp Mini-Yo-We provides a high level experience for our campers because we’re also trying to train and mould leaders at the same time. In fact, the training and development of young leaders is at the core of why we exist. The extra week of training is just one demonstration of the commitment that we have nurtured towards raising the leaders of the next generation. Our 6-week Leaders in Training program is another aspect of the way we train leaders. Our Enterprise experience for our oldest campers where we help them begin their transition in becoming leaders is, as well, yet another example of how we train leaders. Even our year long Intern program is a part of how we develop leaders to serve your kids every summer!
We’re choosing to have one less week of summer at Camp Mini-Yo-We because we want to train our staff more to be ready to serve your kids in the best manner possible!
Rich Birch
Executive Director