FAQ

Our mission is to transform boys into men by building confidence, and independence, while providing opportunities to learn core life skills. We accomplish this mission through our culture and community which is fueled by a caring, empathetic, well trained, and homegrown staff. Our program provides opportunities for your son to learn core life lessons through sports. Together between the culture, community, and program we create lifelong memories and build a network of friendships that spans across all ages and geographies.

Located in the beautiful Northwoods of Wisconsin, in Eagle River. Camp Ojibwa sits on a picture perfect peninsula along Catfish Lake. Our summer mailing address is 4040 Ojibwa Drive, Eagle River Wisconsin. Our Winter Mailing address is 1549 Arbor Ave, Highland Park, IL 60035.

Camp Ojibwa is ACA Accredited and follows the guidelines to maintain our accreditation each year. It is important to maintain our ACA Accredited status to ensure our families that we are maintaining the standards and practices to operate a safe and effective overnight camp program.

Camp is run by our Directors, Joel Losoff (Director) and Joey Bleiman (Associate Director). To learn more about Joel and Joey, visit our Leadership page.

Year over year, Camp Ojibwa is able to hire staff who were former campers. 95% of our staff have over 3 years of Ojibwa experience. This is important because it allows us to create that feeling of home, from the second the boys step off the bus. Our staff’s understanding of our facility, program, and each other give our campers a feeling of brotherhood and connection from day 1. Most of our staff were in your sons shoes so they understand what it feels like to be new at Ojibwa and they also understand what our Ojibwa family is all about.

We have campers from across the United States including IL, WI, MI, NY, FL, CA, TX, MO, CO. In addition we have campers who come from India and Japan.

One aspect that make Ojibwa unique is our cabin arrangement. Our cabins 1-12 form a semi-circle around our main campus softball field. The configuration forces our campers to funnel together creating this unique, shared living environment where everyone starts to hang out with each other and you begin to build relationships across all of the age groups. It is not uncommon to find a 14 year old playing catch, or Spikeball with a 9 year old.

We follow the ACA recommendation of 4:1 and in almost every instance, each of our cabins exceeds those expectations. In our cabins, we hire 4-6 staff and have cabins of 10-20 campers. We require staff to be present in the cabins when the campers are scheduled to be in the cabin.

We are a screen free environment. Campers are allowed to bring music playing devices, so long as they do not contain any other applications, or messaging capabilities. In addition, campers are encouraged to write handwritten letters home and parents send the same to camp via USPS.

Campers are allowed to request three friends, one of which we will guarantee. While we know and want campers to remain with their friends, building relationships outside of your core friends is exactly what Ojibwa is about.

We take great pride in our facilities and equipment. We maintain our court surfaces to have a safe playing environment and continue to evolve our facilities. In the summer of 2019, we are resurfacing our three Trail Tennis Courts to become a multi-functional turf surface for tennis, volleyball, soccer, football, and many other sports that we can feature.

Please contact Joey to schedule a tour this summer. Tours are available any day between June 6th – August 19th.

Camp Ojibwa was one of the first camps to implement a nut-free environment. We take our dietary restrictions/allergies with the utmost care. We have a team comprised of Chef Kyle, the Kitchen Manager, Grace, our Registered and Licensed Dietician Laura Bleiman, and Rachael Losoff who work together, with your son to ensure that he has proper foods available and that he is getting the nutrition he needs every day.

You can visit this page of the website, or email joey@campojibwa.com. You may also call Joey at 312-520-2323.

Please visit this link to be directed to CampMinder to enroll for our Father & Son, One Week, Two Week, Four Week, or Full Session.

Camp Ojibwa is one of the only camps that features two doctors on staff 24/7 for the full 8 weeks of camp. We have a resident Medical Director, Dr. George Sachs (See profile), and a visiting doctor each week. In addition to the doctors, Camp Ojibwa employs 3-4 camp nurses to help manage and care for our campers. A member of our medical team is on-call 24/7 for the entire camp season.

Camp Ojibwa partners with PillPack (www.pillpack.com) to distribute pre-packaged medications to campers. The Medical team administers medications 4 times a day (after breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before bed) from the Health Center. If PillPack can not deliver your son’s medications we will make arrangements for you to either drop off the medications when he gets on the bus, or to call in a prescription to a local, Eagle River, pharmacy.

The camp experience offers many great opportunities, as well as challenges for your son. We prepare and train our staff to identify if/when challenges arise, and how to help their campers navigate through those. Ultimately, your son will come home with more independence, confidence, and self-esteem. To ensure that he has a successful summer, it is important to have in-depth discussions preparing him for his summer. Here is a list of topics that we recommend:

• Self advocacy – If he is in need, or he thinks something is wrong, say something.
• Communicating that it is OK to talk to his counselors and the Directors.
• Home Sickness
• Bullying
• Communal Living

At Camp Ojibwa, our program is focused around league play where all of the campers are placed onto teams to participate in various team sports. For each sport, we have developed rules that allow for a fair and balanced game. We have score out rules, we have time of play requirements for every player, and if the teams are unbalanced, we will execute a trade to level the playing field as much as possible. We encourage the campers to have fun, play hard, and uphold the Ojibwa Way of kindness, respect, fairplay and trustworthiness. All of our leagues and activities are coached and officiated by our highly trained staff, and are overseen by league commissioners, and a General Manager of Leagues and Competition to ensure that campers and staff are conducting themselves to our level of expectation

Every week, our Director of Overnights and Adventure Trips takes a group of campers for an overnight trip. They leave via Pontoon boat, and head towards Scattering Rice lake, via the chain of lakes. Once there, the campers and staff unload the boat, and begin to set up camp. They enjoy an evening filled with incredible campfire cooking, storytelling and bonding with their fellow campers and staff. It is an unforgettable experience. All overnight trips are included and offered at no additional fee.

Laundry Service is 1x per week with a Sunday pickup and Monday drop off. All of the clothes are laundered, and folded when returned to the campers.