When Campy is Cool.

Summer is over and school is back in session. Boo. Throughout the summer, I collected a few articles on summer camps that are targeted to girls, and trying to undo stereotyping while equipping them with skills and hopefully sparking a career interest.

I never really went to camp as a kid. Did a brief stint in a day camp about a mile from my house. I just remember making keychains. Felt like prison. But if I had to do it over, and didn't have to worry about spending my parents' money, I'd really want to go to couture camp on East 53rd Street in Manhattan. It may not be too late for me, perhaps I can be a camp counselor there: I watch Project Runway, have a subscription to Vogue and know it's now ok to wear white after Labor Day.

The New York Times recently profiled this fashion camp that was created by a husband and wife team: Gordon Josey, a full-time summer camp director, and Fran Della Baddia, a senior vice president at Coach. FashionCampNYC is a 5-day hands-on program that's been around four years. The girls who participate are ages 12 - 18 and are taught how to create a brand and market it. They hear firsthand from those in the industry on how to launch a career. Pretty cool, right?

While the fashion industry can send conflicting messages to young girls about body image, I think this is a pretty interesting approach in teaching the business side and teaching young women to how to own the industry.

There is a camp that is working to reverse those conflicting messages. Camp Wah-nee promotes a healthy body image and eating habits to its young female campers. Camp Wah-nee is in Torrington, Connecticut, not the town of Pawnee, Indiana- that's in the sitcom Parks and Recreation. The camp's nutritionist was recently featured on Fox 61 talking about the eating "lessons" she provides for the young women. You can watch that here.

The news article points out some startling statistics about child obesity. And I guess I find it slightly frustrating that the eating is focused only on girls and does not include boys, who tend to have a habit of sitting in front of video games for extended periods of time and may not necessarily know what's healthy eating either.

Head over to Chicago, and there's Gadget Camp! This camp focuses on teaching girls the skills needed for a career in manufacturing. Just over a quarter of the 11.7 million manufacturing workers are women; and in technical fields requiring math and science skills, women are paid 33% more than those working outside technical and science fields.

There are Gadget Camps all over the country, even one in East Hartford, CT. Not only do they teach girls that manufacturing and engineering are not "man's work" but it's also inspiring future workers to pursue training in a field where there are limited amount of skilled workers, a frequent complaint from American manufacturers. You can read more about it here.

I wonder if there will be any follow-up interviews with these campers to see the impact the camping experience has on their career paths. At the very least, it makes the camp experience pretty cool and empowering.

What do you think? Were you empowered at summer camp?