Camp Nick

2025! The final summer of Camp Nick—at least CN 1.0. I ran for four and a half weeks this summer. I opened camp up to some fifteen year olds that have been with me for years and for whatever reason wanted to spend a bonus summer with me. This meant that my boy Oscar attended the first day of camp back in 2016 and the penultimate week this summer—the only camper to be with me every summer since our inception!

What does the future hold? I don’t know yet. I will take some time to reflect, assess, and ultimately choose a path that’s best for my family. Could there be some pop-up camp days? It’s possible. You will just have to stay tuned to find out… I’ll be in touch!

DM me if you want to be added to the email list.

More from 2024!

2024 was a return to pre-pandemic attendance. With baby number two on the way, I started to think about what life will look like post Camp Nick. Will I be booking enough speaking engagements? Will I have to pivot to something more traditional. Is there something I could do to attract a new core of campers as others age out? So many questions. One thing I knew… I would go until it was no longer possible. Summer 2024 was different, but fun. It was a new feel for the campers that started with me during the pandemic. There was a familiar intimacy for those who had been with me since the beginning—those campers were diminishingly small as most were in high school. The silver lining is it allowed for more field trips to new and old adventure spots: downtown, abandoned zoo, In and Out! It was a summer to remember!

Only three days left to be part of the Camp Nick Story.

A cute little camper testimonial at the end!

More from 2023 💙

2023 was the start of a return to normalcy. Mask mandates were basically gone. Attendance levels were still higher than pre-pandemic levels but heading in that direction. This year was my last year of CNTM. But Camp Nick summer, what started it all, was still thriving and a fun escape for kids.

Escape with Camp Nick for our last week!

More photos and videos from summer 2023 to come!

Before I tell you about 2023, I wanted to post more photos and videos from 2022. If you scroll ‘til the end, there’s a fun little clip of my son taken that summer!

Attendance dipped a bit from 2021, but 2022 was still prime Camp Nick when it came to numbers. At this point, my core campers had shifted. There were still those who had been with me since the early days, but many of them were now older and into other things. Camp Nick had a new core of kids. New look, same fun.

Join the fun before it’s too late!

Masked summer! The summer of 2020 was wild… I capped Camp attendance at 10 and consequently it was the first summer I averaged at least 10 campers a day. We were operating in a pseudo pod… So I saw mostly the same campers throughout the summer. Nobody knew how it was going to go, but I’ll say it was a huge success: the kids had fun, no one got sick, and we added some new adventures to the Camp Nick docket. Where larger camps shut down for the summer, I was happy to be able to offer something to do for the kids—Despite the challenge of navigating closed public spaces and yo-yoing regulation. Thank God we are now free from all of that!

Two weeks left to be a part of Camp Nick lure!

#2020

More from 2019!

By the summer of 2019 I was running day camp during school holidays in addition to summer, plus CNTM after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the occasional birthday part for Camp Nick enthusiasts. I added bike days to the mix. We were growing, kids were having fun, and I was loving what I was doing—even when the kids were driving me up a wall.

I have a lot of pictures from this time, so I think I will do a photo dump in a few posts.

You only have two weeks left to be part of the Camp Nick story!

Over the next two summers, I expanded from three weeks, to six weeks, then to eight weeks by 2018. Camp Nick was growing summer after summer. CNTM was becoming more popular, too. I was officially running year around between summer camp and Tuesdays and Thursdays after-school. I also added new adventures like scootering to the Annenburg Pool, and Will Roger’s State Park.

Anyway, I was having a blast and camp was accomplishing what I hoped it would: keeping me connected with the CWC Mar Vista community. I didn’t expect it to expand beyond that community, but it did.

Every summer I would think, “man, how cool is it that I can make a living doing this!”

The weeks of 8/4 and 8/11 will be your final chance to be a part of Camp Nick’s Story. Info in the bio.

In January of 2017, the first after-school session of CNTM took place. A couple of months earlier, I was asked by a mom of one of my former students if I could put together a program for the boys, since one already existed for the girls (Girls on The Run). I was like, “sure, I’d love to do that.”

I thought about what I wanted young boys to get out of a program: emotional awareness, physical activity, confidence in being a boy/to be man. It was never about taring down everything we see as typically masculine, but making room for emotional awareness, which can aid the masculine if harnessed in a healthy way. Now, this wasn’t the language I was using with elementary age boys, but it was the idea behind our discussions, journaling, and competitive games. CNTM ran from January 2017 to May 2023. Many of the boys that started with me when they were 8 and 9, ended with me at 14 and 15!

With three weeks left of summer camp your kids can be a part of the last chapter of the Camp Nick story. Info in bio.