What to Expect

Parents and Campers alike can expect an experience you will not soon
forget with YMCA Camp Dudley! Our dedicated staff, exciting activities,
and phenomenal natural setting all combine into one action packed week.

Parents:

When you arrive on site on Sunday afternoon, your family will be greeted by our staff. The first step is to check in, where you will go over your campers health form with either the Camp Director or our medical personnel. This allows us to ask any followup questions regarding the health of your child that we can provide them the best care possible. Next will be cabin assignments where your camper will find out where they stay for the week! Camp Dudley's caring staff will escort your camper to their cabin to be introduced their Head Counselor, Assistant Counselor, and bunk mates. You are welcome to accompany them to the cabin to get situated, and check out our site. Soon after meeting their cabin, camp starts with activity planning, swim tests, and more! Before leaving, feel free to chat with your campers counseling staff or the Camp Director to have all your questions answered. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible whether or not it is your child's first camp experience!

During the week, your camper will be participating in a wide variety of activities. Our fast paced and full schedule ensures that even the tough to please will have something they enjoy. Packages and mail are passed out every day during lunch, and you are encouraged to send as much as you want! Phone use is restricted to emergency use or extreme cases of homesickness. Calling home in many cases will cause more problems than it solves, and we appreciate your cooperation and understanding.

Soon enough it will be Friday night! When you arrive on site, you will be guided to the dining hall where we will check out your child. You may be asked to present a photo ID when coming on site, or to complete the check out process. This is to ensure a high level of security for your children. Our evening begins with dinner at 6:30pm in the dining hall. Camper presentations will be done throughout dinner and at the closing campfire. After dinner, you will see a slide show reviewing our exciting week at camp. Our final activity to close the week is a campfire where campers and staff will present skits and songs. Hopefully your camper will stay awake long enough on the ride home to tell you about some of their exciting adventures!

If you are a first time camper parent, or a veteran of the
camp experience with some new questions, watch for our
"Q&A" sessions with the Camp Director
coming in April and May!

Campers

Campers, you can expect one amazingly fun week! When you arrive on Sunday afternoon, you will check in, and then taken to your cabin to meet your counselors and bunk mates. Once most of your cabin arrives, you will head to the swimming pool to take your swimming test. After your test, you'll take a quick tour of camp, and play games with your cabin. Dinner comes next, followed by our opening campfire where you will meet all of the Dudley staff, sing some songs, and see your counselors in funny skits. Before lights out, your cabin will meet to decide what activities you want to do on your first full day at camp!

Each day at Dudley is new and exciting. With a huge variety of activities to pick from, no two days (or weeks) are the same. After waking up, your cabin will meet to raise flag and sing songs to wake you up and get energized! Breakfast is followed by a planning meeting where one person from your cabin will come and tell the staff what you are doing for that day. Then you will jump right into your plan! Two hours of morning activities leads us up to lunch where we do mail call. Watch out, if you get mail you'll have to sing, too many and you might be taking a trip to the pool! After lunch is rest hour, a chance to catch your breath, maybe write a quick letter home, and get ready for the afternoon. A full afternoon of activities will have you hungry for dinner! If you are cabin of the day (everyone gets a chance), you get to plan that evenings All Camp activity. All Camps are a blast, and activities are only limited by what you and your cabin group can dream up!

Don't forget that Wednesday night is camp out, where your cabin will hike out to a beautiful campsite and cook your dinner in the great outdoors. We'll make sure that your smore fixings get delivered on time!

By Friday night you should be exhausted from a week of hiking, mountain biking, arts and crafts, swiming, canoeing and lots more. Although it may be tough to say good bye, you can always come back next year!