Eight to eleven campers and two or three counselors make up a cabin group. Campers are assigned to cabins by age group and session length. Sandy Hill honors up to three or four cabinmate preferences for one- and two-week campers respectively who are no more than one grade apart. Special care is taken to make sure that our many campers without cabinmate preferences are not put in cabins where all the others already know each other.
Lodges for Two-Week Campers
Each of the five lodges are modern yet rustic-looking, 4300-square-foot, two-story buildings that house 56 campers and staff in 4 bunk rooms. The first floor has two bunk rooms for 14 people each, a large common area with a two-story atrium, and a bathroom/shower area. The second floor houses two more cabin groups with two bunk rooms and a second bathroom/shower area. The lodges have electricity, central air-conditioning, storage cubbies, fans, and indoor plumbing. All of our two-week campers spend their entire two-week session in a lodge.
Cabins and Bathhouses for One-Week Campers
Rustic cabins are furnished with bunk beds, and campers bring their own linens (unless traveling by plane). Most cabins house either 11 or 14 people including both staff and campers. Cabins have lights and fans, but do not have accessible outlets. Clean, modern and newly renovated bathhouses with shower facilities and electricity are located nearby. One-week campers typically live in cabins for their five-night session.
Cabinmate Requests & Cabin Assignments
Remember that old song, "Make new friends, but keep the old?" Our philosophy is to balance the opportunity to meet new people with the comfort of being with friends. So, we do honor cabinmate requests, but our policy tries to make sure that no more than half of the campers in a cabin know each other before they arrive to camp. And plenty of campers come without any cabinmate requests!
Cabins are assigned by age and sex with the intention of keeping similar age groups together in a one-week cabin or two-week lodge room.
We have an online system for requesting cabinmates. There are typically 8 campers in younger cabins and 9-11 campers in older one-week cabins. Up to 4 one-week campers can request to be together, and up to 5 older one-week campers can request to be together. For two-week campers, the lodge rooms accommodate 10 to 11 campers. So, up to 5 two-week campers can request to be together. Campers who are on a Cabinmate Request List together are guaranteed to be in the same cabin.
When assigning cabins, multiple "lists" of campers of similar age and different geographic areas are put together to fill a cabin. Campers who are not coming with friends are grouped into cabins with at least two other campers who are also not coming with friends.