This summer, I had such a great opportunity for my internship as a hospitality major. I got to be the head baker at a family camp on an island on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire!
So what exactly is a family camp? Well at this specific family camp, a bunch of families stay in cabins for a week, there are nine weeks each with different people. The camp is on an island so the staff lives on the island for the summer but the campers only stay for a week. There are all sorts of fun activities provided but also free time to go kayaking, swimming, paddle boarding and sailing. Most families that go here have been going for generations, therefore it is fun to come back every year and see the people that go to your week and how everyone has changed over the year. My family is one of those families. I have been going to this camp since I was a few months old and so has my dad and my grandma. All of my older cousins worked at this camp and so did my dad when he was around my age. It is super fun because all of my extended family goes and I get to see all my cousins that I don’t get to see all the time. My family is huge so during week 4, which is our week, we make up most of the island. There are around 200 campers on the island at a time and my family makes up over three quarters of the population. Even those not related to us are like family because we have known them our whole lives.
Being able to work here was incredible because I got to experience all the different personalities of each week. The staff is mostly around my age which is really nice and most of the staff are former campers so it is fun to see everybody’s weeks. I even got to work with a few of my cousins which was really cool. We also got to take full advantage of the island facilities without paying for it like using the kayaks or paddle boards. There were different departments on the island, but I was obviously in the kitchen because I was the baker. It was such an awesome experience working in the kitchen because you become so close to your crew. We had so much fun while working and when we had free time we did kitchen kayaking trips and swam a lot, one time we all played water polo along with some of our other friends from different crews. One night we went on a kitchen outing to Weirs, New Hampshire and got ice cream and went to the arcade. It was also fun hanging out with everyone from every crew at night after everyone was done working. The entire staff is made up of such nice people and I have become so close with most of them. We are even planning to visit each other, since most of us live or go to school in Massachusetts, which I am very excited for.
Originally I was going to do an internship somewhere near my house for 3 weeks and then work up at the camp for the remainder of the summer, but when they offered me the job as the baker they told me I had to work the whole summer. The nice thing about being a hospitality major is that I was able to get working there to count as my internship and I was also paid for it which was very nice.
My job entailed baking desserts for lunch and dinner for the staff and campers each week, so almost 300 people. I got to bake a wide array of things some more simple like cookies and brownies and other things more time consuming like apple crisp, tiramisu and seven layer bars. I also got to make birthday cakes and I made a few special ones for people I knew during my week. It was a lot of work but I had a super fun time doing it because I love to bake. I had to work around 50 hours a week, but baking the desserts didn’t take 8 hours to do so after I was done baking I would help in the front of the house and do things such as clean, serve food and help campers. During dinner I would go around to tables to see if anyone needed anything else, which was a really good way to sharpen my customer service skills. It was awesome getting to know some of the campers from weeks other than week Most of the campers worked there as well many years ago and it was interesting hearing their stories of how it used to be.
Overall it was a great experience and I can’t wait to work there next summer not as an internship but still as a wonderful summer job!