Feedback on Eden Village West sleepaway camp?
Hi there, curious if any families have sent their kids to Eden Village West sleepaway camp and how the experience has been? It looks great on the website. We are looking for a new sleepaway camp for our 13 year old daughter for next summer - she loves the arts, music, outdoors, animals. She has previously attended several summers at a Jewish sleepaway camp back east. I know Camp Tawonga is super popular but Eden Village West sounds great too. Thanks in advance!
Oct 14, 2021
Parent Replies
Hello! My 12-year-old daughter went to Eden Village West last summer -- it was her second time and she loved, loved it. It is a magnificent camp -- a warm, kind, creative, inclusive place with very nurturing staff and leadership. The kids are given a lot of choices for their activities, but they're also encouraged to try plenty of new things and take (good, safe) risks. The kids have tons of fun and there's plenty of silly camp stuff (skits, songs, etc.) -- and they also learn a great deal about farming, the environment, social justice, and Judaism. There's a wide range of Jewish observance, but I think everyone feels welcome. The facilities are beautiful, such a lovely setting. I'd be happy to talk with you about it if you'd like to contact me directly!
Our 11-y.o. (boy) twins and their 11-y.o. (girl) cousin all went to Eden West this year. Our kids had never been at camp/away from home before, did not want to go at all (I insisted), and it wound up being a mixed experience. I should definitely frame this by saying that my kids are video game and junk food addicts who would probably have been happier to stay home and play Minecraft all summer, but I wanted them to get out of the house and experience summer camp and thought Eden West might be a great choice.
The setting outside of Healdsburg, surrounded by the Russian River, is gorgeous, although the buildings/dorms themselves are a pretty drab (it's on the campus of an Adventist boarding school). It is a new and very small camp (only ~100 campers in their session), which was good and bad - it makes for a close community but a small-ish staff and thus a fairly limited range of activities... the kids complained that things got repetitive. Although the camp does not make this clear, it is 100% vegetarian, and the kids complained quite a lot about the food - way too much zucchini for their taste. I think the food was legitimately a weak point - based on photos and reports from the kids, the kitchen seemed pretty amateurish and I think the range of options was very limited, which was surprising since the camp touts its "farm-to-table" wholesome approach to food.
On the plus side, the camp is extremely inclusive, the staff are extremely warm and super-enthusiastic, and I think they worked really hard to make it a great experience. It's also tricky to judge a camp during the pandemic, since the COVID protocols (which were very successful) involved keeping different bunks separate for much of the session, which clearly limited what they could do. Their cousin has been to Ramah in Ojai a couple of times and actually preferred her experience at Eden Village West, and she's probably more representative of a typical 11-yo camper. I wish my kids had had a more satisfying experience - they don't want to go back, nor do they want to try another camp, so I'm struggling to figure out what to do with them next summer.
Hi, thank you so much for these replies and advice! I greatly appreciate it.