Hailey

 

Hi!!!

I’m Hailey (but feel free to just call me Hail or Hails!)

I grew up in the Chicagoland area and my family currently lives in a suburb called Oak Park which is a suburb directly bordering Chicago and is famous for its architectural history (The street I live on is actually named after Frank Lloyd Wright).

Since I lived right off the green line I got super used to Chicago Public transit! I took the train downtown often, took the bus to work, and even took my first ever solo trip to New York City from Chicago to New York via amtrak!

Even though I love solo adventures, like camp, I have lots of friends and family back home who I am going to miss. I have a big Mexican family on my dad’s side and a lot of siblings at home with my mom. Luckily being a camp counselor makes me feel at home because I am used to both living with lots of people and being a big sister 🙂

While I grew up in more suburban areas, I currently live in central Illinois! I am a student at Illinois Wesleyan University studying Elementary education. Even though I am studying to be an elementary teacher, I have worked with all age groups and I currently do before and after school care with our local YWCA

Since I am so used to city life, as soon as I started to experience the outdoors more I immediately fell in love! I spent the summer of 2022 at a different overnight camp as a counselor. It was truly one of the best experiences of my life. I am excited to experience it in a totally new way at Augusta.

My last employers were an inclusive camp that served children and adults with or without disabilities. I learned so much and hope to be able to bring all the things they taught me about inclusion to camp Augusta while also taking on a whole new experience to learn and grow even more!

To prepare myself for camp I have been spending as much of my freetime outdoors as possible! Going on hikes, working weekend camps at the campsite close to my school, and exploring parts of my town I haven’t seen before. My school is only about an hour away from starved rock national park so I have made it my personal goal for this spring to visit once a week.

I haven’t gotten a chance to travel too much outside of my trip to New York and so coming to California for camp will be the longest I have ever been somewhere outside of Illinois.

I am not quite sure what my future holds for me and whether or not I will spend my long term in Illinois, out of state, working for camps, being a teacher, or something I can’t even think up just yet. All I know is that I want to keep challenging myself physically, mentally, and emotionally as much as I can and I think that Camp Augusta will be the perfect journey to do so! Can’t wait to meet you. 🙂

With so much love,

Hails.