I am not sure if anyone is in this sort of situation and/or may be able to offer any suggestions. We run a program located in a very nice middle to upper class town right outside a small city. Our camp serves about 400 campers a day in a day camp setting. About 1/2 are from the suburbs and 1/2 from the city. The problem that we are facing is that about 1/4 of our campers recieve full scholarships through the United Way. That's great, but the United Way does not want to give scholarships to campers that have received them previously the years before. So we end up with 100 first time campers each session, who don't neccesarily want to be there, and are definitely not there for the camp experience. As one may imagine, other families are concerned that their campers are picking up habits from these scholarship campers and are not sending their campers back to camp.
I guess I'm interested to know if anyone else has such a disparity at their program and how do you train your staff, and structure the program so that it is not only enjoyable for all, but also beneficial.
Thanks!
