Camp and Social Entrepreneurship

Campers taking initiative to complete a task during
the Final Banquet activities.

We recently came across an article on Huffington Post Education that was a great read and something we’d like to share with our camp community. If you call up any camp profession, they can tell you one million and one ways summer camp can be a benefit to your child. The article “A Consequence of Character” that we came across provides yet another excellent, less commonly touted, benefit of summer camp.

The Center for Adolescent Research and Education (CARE) at Susquehanna University conducted a study that confirmed that “life lessons” learned during adolescence help inspire social entrepreneurship. The character traits of social entrepreneurs include motivation, initiative, sociability, adaptability and optimism and are outgoing, flexible and assertive people. 

Ask any camp professional what character traits campers leave camp with and the previously listed traits will be high on the list.

Participants in the study that attended a summer camp were significantly more likely to state an interest in social entrepreneurship than those who had not attended camp. Learn why by reading the full article.