By Arianna Williams, Belmont Voice correspondent
The sun scorches the land as children dive into the pool. While some swim to cool down, others slide and swing on the bright blue playground set, affectionately called Big Blue. Belmont Day Summer Camp has been a cornerstone of the community, educating children during the summer for eight decades. Here, students learn to swim, build robots out of Lego, play all sorts of sports including soccer, basketball, and archery, and, most importantly, make friends and have fun.
What makes the camp special is the multi-generation cycle of campers that keep coming back.
“I think what makes our camp special is community and this sort of, like, self-sustaining nature of it, where we have campers that come back every year and become staff members,” said Director of Summer Programs Zachary d’Arbeloff.
Belmont Day School opened in 1927 and accepts students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Over the years, it expanded into the 11-acre campus it is today. In response to a demand for summer programming in post-war America, the summer camp started in 1946 with about 60 children, said d’Arbeloff.
Hannah Kleppner, the camp’s assistant director of auxiliary programs, started as a camper in 2002. As a teenager, she became a counselor, a common path at Belmont Day Camp for campers to return as counselors and keep coming back.
“I had counselors that I looked up to and staff that I looked up to. And, you know, they were like cool older kids. And you get a little bit of that, like, ooh, that could be me someday,” she said.
Summer camp is not a daycare, said Kleppner. Children are engaged in social-emotional learning and relationship-building.
“They’re able to drop off kids as early as 7:45 and pick them up as late as 5:30, which is huge for working parents. But that’s not just like free time for a kid. You know, we’re having meaningful experiences during that time,” Kleppner said.
Swimming lessons are a summer highlight, and students can also learn woodshop, archery, music, and arts and crafts.
“There are other camps like us, but we’re one of the only camps in the area where everyone gets a swim lesson,” d’Arbeloff said.
Over the years, the camp has expanded in both size and curriculum. D’Arbeloff said they see about 350 campers daily.
“Camp now versus camp in 1946, I think, is like a different world, especially in Massachusetts, in terms of how much we as a camp industry have worked to make it safer and more engaging for different types of kids,” D’Arbeloff said.