How We Celebrated Our 100th Summer
For many years, we had been looking forward to our 100th summer at camp…organizing, thinking, and devising the best ways to celebrate Greystone’s centennial year. We knew it had to be BIG, but what did that mean at a summer camp that already loves to go big? Well, it may have taken years of planning, but we found some very cool ways to celebrate 100 years at Greystone for each of our camp sessions. Looking back, it was a wonderful summer!
Opening Day: We started each session with a bang! From balloon arches to special 100th welcome signs to a 100th photobooth backdrop to counting down from 100 to release girls to their cabins, we began the celebration on the first day! Campers and families could also visit our Archive displays in White Hall to experience the 100 year history of camp.
100th picture: Our June campers made history by putting their bodies into the shape of a 100 for our centennial 100th picture – a picture that will last for the next 100 years!
Birthday celebration dinner: Each of our sessions celebrated with our 100th celebration dinner in the Dining Hall. We decorated to the nines, including gold tablecloths, party hats, 100th confetti, specialty napkins, 100th balloons, and more. We ate favorite foods (chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, and roasted broccoli) and then finished the night with an individual cupcake for each camper. We sang happy birthday to Greystone and then all blew out our candles together. Top it off with a Dining Hall dance party, and the 100th birthday dinner was a huge success!
June 100th Extravaganza: June campers celebrated the 100th birthday with an Evening Program spent visiting different booths to complete activities from different decades at camp. Add in a food truck and an overnight extravaganza and you have the makings of a favorite Evening Program!
Main 100th Extravaganza: Our Main campers got the biggest and best of the show with our celebration Evening Program. Renting the largest foam pit we could find, adding in messy twister, a new t-shirt, a food truck, and smoke bombs, we went all out for the celebration. It was a night to remember.
Fireworks: Our June, Main, and August campers enjoyed a specialty fireworks show put on by a real pyrotechnics expert. It’s hard to explain quite what the show was like, but all we can say is that we have never seen anything like it. Synched up to popular hit songs, the fireworks shot off on beat to the music. Many campers and counselors cried during the performance, as they just couldn’t believe it! Everyone who saw the show will remember it for a very long time.
Old School Cool: Main campers also participated in an Evening Program dubbed Old School Cool, where they were able to participate with their age group in an activity that campers used to do back in the day. From Square Dancing to cooking with the Millers to a Flick and Float (movie and lake floating), girls enjoyed experiencing camp like girls of yesteryear did.
Respect Your Elders: Our Main Camp Gameshow looked back at the past with on stage games and skits that campers and counselors used to love in decades past. Current campers enjoyed Greystone Squares, More Than a Box, and the Dating Game for the very first time!
Passports: Our Main campers had the opportunity to experience the 100th all session long by completing our Greystone passport challenge. Each camper was given a passport and could complete activities during the session from that particular decade; after completing the activity, she could get her passport stamped. Some activities included: hiking with a director (Jimboy) on Sunday afternoon (1920s), jumping in Lake Edith at Reveille for the Polar Bear Plunge (1950s), a 1980s theme dinner, and cheerleading try-outs (2000s). Some girls filled their entire passport by the end of the summer!
A Night on Broadway: Our Main Camp Banquet theme was a throw back to many great Banquets of old. With a fun, snappy script and a mix of the most popular of all of the Broadway songs, our Main Campers went wild for this new Banquet theme. Girls loved experiencing a little bit of Banquet from many decades!
Giveaways: No summer at Greystone would be complete without fun giveaways, and our 100th celebration giveaways will be keepsakes for years to come. Girls received a gold embossed copy of our theme verse, a 100th patch, a silver enameled 100th pin, specialty stickers, TONS of shirts, and lots, lots more. Our Main campers each received a soft cover version of our 100th Celebration Book – a true keepsake! Add in some fun giveaways, like 100th tattoos (that may or may not have been difficult to remove), and our campers surely have 100th memorabilia to last a lifetime!
We look back at our 100th summer with nothing but fond memories. We couldn’t imagine a better celebration and a better group of campers to experience it with. What was your favorite way we celebrated the 100th this past summer?