My kids have attended arts camps, which tend to be very diverse compared to your typical Maine-style camp. For next year, if your kids are into music, theater, and the arts, consider French Woods or Interlochen.

This thread has a tell; its not that POCs don't enjoy or want their children to go to sleepaway camps; we just know that these camps skew white especially waspy-wealthy, and choose not to send our children to those environments. While demographics are changing, there has not been enough critical mass of wealthy POCs to diversify wealth-correlated summer activities. A bigger tell, is that OP couldn't ask her close-circle POC friends which camps they are going to this summer and DC can join - hence the crowd source from DCUM. Our children want the organic experience of having genuine fun with friends and so we typically coordinate plans or find experiences and locations that are more diverse than not (think soccer camp, or a coordinated cruise) No one wants to send their child to a place where they are token and uncomfortable. So OP - the answer is Letts, or find out what your child's close friends are doing and join them....

Seconding all the suggestions for Y camps. Not familiar with the local scene, but I was 3rd-gen at a New England Y camp and plan on sending my children as well.

Nice, historic facilities, 100+ years of tradition, classic camp experience w/ Y values. I'm active in the alumnae community and it seems like these days there's a healthy mix of wealthy kids, UMC/MC kids, and scholarship kids, and racially diverse amongst all income brackets.

When I was there as a kid it was less diverse, but still pretty impressive for the early 2000s (my parent/grandparent who attended were WASPs, but I'm not white, and felt like I fit in fine/was rarely the only PoC in a cabin or class). There were kids of color from schools like Rosemary Hall, Nobles, and Exeter, and white kids on scholarship from Dorchester and Roxbury. There was strong international recruiting as well, lots of full-pay campers from South America.

You need speech and writing camp not DEI sleepover camp.

Another vote for Camp Letts - my kids attended last year, extremely diverse. There ARE many diverse parents who send their children to Camp Letts

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you looking for diversity? Is your child diverse?

From non white friends in the area I have found sleep away camp isn’t popular and these are parents who can easily afford it. The reasons I have heard are generally vague and with the only specifics being they just don’t believe in sending their kid to stay with strangers for overnights and it wasn’t something they did growing up

This is key. We are POC who can afford sleepaway camp and our kids don’t attend.

POC here, HHI > $350k, would not send children to sleep away camp, just wouldn't.

OP - i feel your pain - I always lived in big cities and am completely at home in diverse surroundings. But in my first job out of law school, I was forced to live in Lansing, Michigan for 6 months (stayed at the Marriott). That was a culture shock (and not in a good way). But 25 years later, I was forced to return to Lansing, and it's like minority white now. The world is changing.

That middle sentence got messed up, should be "If Camp Director showed more sincere interest in making amends or even acknowledging the problem, DS might have considered giving it another try (because he liked the camp otherwise and he kind of understands that sometimes bad things happen, but felt dismissed rather than supported by camp staff)."

Anonymous wrote:Resurrecting an old thread bc we've struggled (and continue to struggle with) this question! Based on our limited experience the last few years:

Camp Calleva - slightly more diverse than the average sleepaway camp, which tend to skew very WASPy
Camp Friendship - kid loved it, but it seemed more typical of sleepaway camps (reminded me of Get Out (the movie)).
Camp Independent Lake - heard is slightly more diverse than average, but we haven't tried it bc it's quite pricey.

Agree with a PP that sleepaway camps are not a thing for many families of color. (My parents would never have spent money to have us sleep in modest surroundings, although that's clearly changing with my generation.) After Camp Friendship, I realized I really didn't want kid to be the only POC in his cabin and made sure that didn't happen by sending him along with a friend who's also a POC.

OP here... we were at Independent Lake previously but not going back, DS had a backpack with camp stuff (game cards, dice, etc.) stolen two years running. Both times the Camp Director minimized the incident at pickup, told us our kid probably forgot where he put it, that it would show up in lost-and-found, etc. but it never did and he never really followed up with us when we inquired afterwards either. We think there's a bit of willful denial going on there, but benefit of the doubt is this is probably bad luck (and potentially DS being a bit too open with cabinmates about what's in his pack) rather than a rampant issue, but no real way to know. Regardless, it certainly soured our kids' experience enough that we aren't going back. If Camp Director showed more sincere interest in making amends or even acknowledging the problem, he kind of understands that sometimes bad things happen, but felt dismissed rather than supported by camp staff). Is a shame as we had already brought one friend along last year, and possibly would have another this year, plus younger siblings, etc... but I get the sense that they've got such a massive program/pipeline of campers such that they probably don't care much about collateral damage in a few cases like ours, easier just to ignore and move on with status quo.

We did Calleva day camps in prior years and they were OK, but DS said he doesn't want to go there for sleepaway. Didn't give a reason, but just that he thinks it's "kinda mid".

We are trying Camp Friendship this year, we've been there for family camp in the fall and had a good time, so it will be a bit familiar territory at least. A bit concerned how white-heavy the skew is, but again recruited a close friend (non-POC) to join him for camp this year, which should help ensure a smooth experience (we hope!)

As noted in an earlier post in this thread, there are several others that have been mentioned that we'll be considering for next year (or potentially back to Friendship if this year goes well). But I do think camps in Pennsylvania and northward would be a bit preferable due to less hot/humid weather.

Resurrecting an old thread bc we've struggled (and continue to struggle with) this question! Based on our limited experience the last few years:

Camp Calleva - slightly more diverse than the average sleepaway camp, which tend to skew very WASPy
Camp Friendship - kid loved it, but it seemed more typical of sleepaway camps (reminded me of Get Out (the movie)).
Camp Independent Lake - heard is slightly more diverse than average, but we haven't tried it bc it's quite pricey.

Agree with a PP that sleepaway camps are not a thing for many families of color. (My parents would never have spent money to have us sleep in modest surroundings, although that's clearly changing with my generation.) After Camp Friendship, I realized I really didn't want kid to be the only POC in his cabin and made sure that didn't happen by sending him along with a friend who's also a POC.

Anonymous wrote:Why are you looking for diversity? Is your child diverse?

From non white friends in the area I have found sleep away camp isn’t popular and these are parents who can easily afford it. The reasons I have heard are generally vague and with the only specifics being they just don’t believe in sending their kid to stay with strangers for overnights and it wasn’t something they did growing up

This is key. We are POC who can afford sleepaway camp and our kids don’t attend.

Besides Camp Letts, I would suggest reaching out to your kids’ friend’s parents to see if they can attend with your children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a lot of racial diversity when attending a 10,000 plus sleepaway camp. This shouldn’t surprise you. Ones with more diversity are the ones with generous scholarships available- but even then, it isn’t over 20%

I guess we're looking for something more like our general neighborhood... we're zoned for McLean HS, which is only 50% white, and the majority of the rest of the families are mid-to-upper SES (save for a few pockets) so not requiring scholarships. One of us parents grew up in California and seemed like more diversity was the norm so yes, a bit surprised at how homogenous some of these camp profiles seem to be.

Anonymous wrote:Ask your kids friends who are non-white what sleep away camps they go to.

Good suggestion, but we're at a small private and don't know many families with kids a few years older who would have sleepaway camp experience that we could draw upon.

Firstly, you hit my pet peeve. "We" are not at a small private school. Presumably you are an adult and no longer going to school. Your kids go to school. Secondly, and more to the point, you are thinking too narrowly - you don't need kids from your kids' school to mine camp info from. It's sleep away camp - they can get there from ANYWHERE. Thirdly, maybe reach out to Jack & Jill - I bet they could give you some camp advice.

FWIW, yes “we” ARE at a small private school. Aside from paying tuition, we parents are involved in the school as chaperones for field trips and overnights, as room parents, regular attendees at parent events about curriculum or various parenting topics, fundraisers, and various other school activities that include us. We’ve become close friends with several other families, and maintained some of those ties even after kids have moved on to other programs. It is very much a community and we are all involved in our children’s education and our decision to have our children attend. Sorry if you don’t have that same sense of connectedness and belonging in your own school community and just see it as “a place your kids attend”.

Appreciate the mentions of Letts, Sandy Hill, and Farwell, we’ll look into them!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There isn’t a lot of racial diversity when attending a 10,000 plus sleepaway camp. This shouldn’t surprise you. Ones with more diversity are the ones with generous scholarships available- but even then, it isn’t over 20%

I guess we're looking for something more like our general neighborhood... we're zoned for McLean HS, which is only 50% white, and the majority of the rest of the families are mid-to-upper SES (save for a few pockets) so not requiring scholarships. One of us parents grew up in California and seemed like more diversity was the norm so yes, a bit surprised at how homogenous some of these camp profiles seem to be.

Anonymous wrote:Ask your kids friends who are non-white what sleep away camps they go to.

Good suggestion, but we're at a small private and don't know many families with kids a few years older who would have sleepaway camp experience that we could draw upon.

Firstly, you hit my pet peeve. "We" are not at a small private school. Presumably you are an adult and no longer going to school. Your kids go to school. Secondly, and more to the point, you are thinking too narrowly - you don't need kids from your kids' school to mine camp info from. It's sleep away camp - they can get there from ANYWHERE. Thirdly, maybe reach out to Jack & Jill - I bet they could give you some camp advice.

If you're going to nitpick about language, firstly and secondly are not words. It's just first and second. That's *my* pet peeve.

Of course they’re words. They’re adverbs. Wtf? <———- not a word, but I bet you know what it means.

Anonymous wrote:Camp letts

I was going to say YMCA, because my DD went to camp Letts. But that was back in 2015. There were a quite a few black kids there (along with my DD). She made a good friend there that she connected with over hair. I think she transposed her mom’s phone number, because it never worked when we tried to call it later