Lately, I have been thinking back to a particular summer early in junior high when I was eagerly anticipating my time at camp. I was not yet a camp counselor, but I aspired to be one as soon as possible. I couldn’t wait to spend time with my camp friends from the other side of the state. And I was super excited for the long rides to and from camp during which one of our long-suffering parents would endure the exuberance of a backseat full of wildly bouncy teens. As a parent myself, I can now deeply appreciate the peaceful silence of the drive back home from camp after dropping off my own bundles of energy.

In preparation for camp, I spent time cutting, folding, stapling, and designing small, blank “camp yearbooks” for my cabinmates — those I knew and those I had yet to meet. I brought a Polaroid Captiva camera (anyone remember those?) to get small photos of each camper and counselor, plus group shots. We taped them in our yearbooks and wrote notes to each other next to our photos. These became a treasured keepsake for me, and hopefully for the other campers in my cabin.

I also spent many hours making friendship bracelets, using embroidery floss to tie lines of knots in different colors. I remember that the bracelets were always twisty until they had been worn for a few days. Then they softened and laid flat against my wrist, and the colored rows of knots showed up neatly, as I expected them to.

Carefully tying knot after knot of colors I had intentionally chosen took a long time, and I was so excited when each of my cabinmates put on their matching bracelets, and we shared that symbol of community.

As you think about the process of improving character development at camp, one valuable way to approach it is to think of your core values as an array of specific colors. Imagine that each staff member and camper leaves wearing a friendship bracelet representing the colors of your camp’s values — either literally or figuratively.

Think about which color you want to represent each of your camp’s core values, and then intentionally infuse those value-color combinations into camp culture. Presented here are some ideas for using colors to represent your values in marketing, hiring, training, program implementation, evaluation, and reflection.

Marketing

As you work to get the word out about your camp, it is important to try a variety of different strategies. First, think about what values are already clearly spelled out or represented on your website, social media, newsletters, or other materials. Then, using your colors, consider how the following strategies fit with your current marketing goals, and how you can incorporate color into what you are already doing:

Create color-coded sections of your website focused on each of your core values, including photos, videos, testimonials, and/or descriptions of campers learning, demonstrating, or experiencing the specific value in action.

On marketing materials or camp swag, consider a color-coded design with your core values clearly visible to continually draw attention to your camp’s mission and goals.

When your values are incorporated into evaluation, share out camper/parent/staff thoughts on how they see the values in action at camp, or when they had the opportunity to practice or grow in the values — and don’t forget to include the associated color!

Staff Hiring

As you hire staff each year, one character-related goal may be to find individuals whose values already align with your organization’s values. Consider how you are currently announcing open positions and how you run applications and interviews. Are your values represented? Consider using colors in the following ways to clearly express expectations for potential staff members before they arrive at camp:

In application materials, use your values in their associated colors to clearly articulate your organization’s culture and mission. Share examples of what those values mean in action or how campers can practice them.

During interviews, share a colorful visual of each value as you ask applicants about their own experiences with that value — what it means to them in their lives, or how they would role model it at camp.

When offering positions, provide potential staff members with swag or even a literal friendship bracelet that incorporates your assigned value colors and a description of their meaning to your organization’s mission. This sets the tone from the very beginning about what values they choose to represent when they accept the position.

Staff Training

If you’re planning to implement opportunities for character development at camp, it is essential that your staff are well prepared to role model core values, articulate them clearly, and reinforce an environment where they are continually visible. As you plan staff training, the following ideas for infusing color into your activities might help meet your character development goals:

Run an activity where staff members brainstorm on how to role model, teach, or build an environment for each of the core values in structured and unstructured camp activities. Have them write using markers that align with the value colors you have chosen. (See “Defining Character-Based Staff Practices” in the March/April 2025 issue of Camping Magazine, at ACAcamps.org/article/camping-magazine/character-cultivation-defining-character-based-staff-practices, if you’d like a full facilitation guide for this activity.)

Regularly give staff members the opportunity (at meals, campfire, daily meeting) to call out fellow staff members in positive ways when they see one of the camp values in action. Provide color-coded ribbons, prizes, beads, or other recognition. This activity helps staff members practice watching for and identifying core values in action and can then be translated into an activity with campers.

As staff members create the visual environment around them with decorations, posters, and nametags, make sure they utilize your values-based color scheme. This could mean creating colored posters with the value word and definition or incorporating each of the colors into cabin decorations, so they can share the symbolism with campers in creative ways.

Program Implementation

While camp is actively happening is arguably the most fun and exciting time to incorporate your color values into camp programming and culture. You may be able to shift or expand some of your current activities to draw more colorful attention to your values, or build new traditions using these suggestions:

Consider designating a different day of camp or week of the summer to focus on each of your core, color-coded camp values to visually draw attention to them. You can create color-themed crafts, skits, games, and activities. (Though I am often cautious about the use of AI, asking it to come up with creative themed camp activities is an excellent use of our robot friends, in my opinion!)

Whenever group reflection takes place at camp, consider making a colorful laminated flipchart of your values available for reference (maybe a pocket chart on a keyring for each counselor). Counselors and activity facilitators can hold up a page with one color-coded value for campers to focus on and ask if campers observed or experienced that value in action. Using your values to guide reflection on camp activities is essential to campers understanding the connection between camp activities and their own growing identities and “real lives.”

Give campers or cabin groups the opportunity to earn recognition by earning color-coded beads or other physical tokens when they demonstrate core camp values. This might happen during structured activities, or during unstructured times like bedtime or transitions from one activity to another. Both giving and receiving this recognition is important. However, make sure to take special care to intentionally celebrate those small indications of growth from campers who are struggling behaviorally. Think very carefully about your specific values and how the “lack” of earning a bead or token could impact a camper before implementing this activity or any other recognition-based practice.

Evaluation and Reflection

Evaluation of camp programs and reflection on the results of evaluations go hand in hand. Whether you are evaluating program quality, camper experiences, staff experiences, or parent perceptions, as you design evaluations and think carefully about the results, keeping your core values at the center is crucial. Consider these ideas for incorporating color into your essential evaluation and reflection activities:

Ask about your values in action. When surveying campers, they love color in their surveys, so including color-coded questions can work well. Ask campers about whether they experienced each of your values in action, or whether they grew in each of your values. Ask parents if they saw post-camp growth in any of the values (use color for their surveys too).

You can assess program quality in many different ways, but a color-coded values checklist is fun and fast way to assess character-based program quality. When observing a camp activity, check off each value that you see role modeled, explicitly talked about, or when staff provide intentional opportunities for campers to grow in the value. It is crucial to identify for staff members what those opportunities should look like and how campers are expected to learn to develop in your core values.

When you reflect on your camp year with your leadership team, consider color-coded posters with each of your camp values on which you can brainstorm and jot down areas of strength and struggle from the past year. With each topic that is raised, see if you can agree on which value or values it is most related to. You may end up with a clearer picture of how your leadership team sees your overall camp program in terms of the core camp values. Maybe one value poster is full of all strengths, one is full of struggles, one is a mix, and one is blank. This kind of brainstorming, categorizing, and reflection can lead to valuable decision-making in relation to your values and how you implement them in the future.

Weaving the Colors Into a Plan for Growth

Moving forward from the initial reflection period, consider how well each of your core values showed up throughout the whole camp cycle. Was one of the values faded or missing altogether? Could this mean that the concept was difficult for staff or campers to understand, model, or practice? Was there one core value whose color you could see clearly throughout every area of camp? What makes that value different from the others? How can you continue to keep that vibrancy and improve on the other values?

Camp provides the unique opportunity to live in community — often 24 hours a day — which provides endless chances to practice how staff and campers interact with others. When we as leaders choose our core camp values carefully, based on our organization’s mission, we take the first step in defining a vibrant culture.

Assigning colors to each core value can enhance thinking and provide a memorable focal point for your staff and participants. As you work toward providing opportunities for developing good character, you may find the most success when you infuse the color of each value clearly and consistently through all elements of camp life. And just as those colorful friendship bracelets are stubbornly twisty at first, a little time of warmth and wear will soften them into clear lines of color and community.

Amanda Palmer, MS, is a camp trainer, consultant, researcher, and doctoral candidate at the University of Idaho. Amanda supports camps and organizations year-round with developing plans for aligning their unique missions with observable staff practices. Within ACA, Amanda is a program quality coach, an accreditation visitor, a subject matter expert for the Character at Camp initiative, and a member of Camping Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Committee. She is a former camper, camp counselor, and mother of four campers of her own. Contact Amanda at [email protected].