Camp Butternut Springs | Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana

★★★★★Yanitza Jones

My daughters been a Girl Scout for 3 years and been to camp here many times with her troop and they love it. I also brought her here for a pumpkin archery event and the staff was very helpful and welcoming to her in helping her out

★★★Stephanie Williamson

Just got back from staying here with my daughter’s troop. The staff was friendly, but the accommodations weren’t taken care of very well. The freezer leaked down the inside of the refrigerator onto the floor, the stove flames were either HUGE or not working, and one of the toilets was clogged upon our arrival. They have awesome things for the girls to do as far as activities, though.

★Charlotte Graves

I went to this camp at age 9. I had a very horrible experience. My counselors greeted me very rudely and made me super uncomfortable. Just the sleeping situation was not ideal and I never got good sleep due to the thin mattresses and squeaky bed frams. This is quite personal, but a lot of the girls there were extremely rude and didn't involve me. The food did not look sanitary and it tasted absolutely horrible. They did have a vegan option, but the vegan burgers looked fake. We also had to set with a different group at lunch, breakfast and dinner every day. This made me feel very uncomfortable because they would force me to have conversations with strangers. Like I said before, I was 9 years old, sitting with 17 year olds being forced to talk to them. The only time we were allowed to shower was right, after we had a swim, the showers were extremely dirty and disgusting and the water pressure was so hard, I felt like I was getting hit with rocks. I went to this camp for one week, but midway through the week I had a horrible rash, they would send me to the nurse every day, and I would cry to call my parents to take me home. They would not allow me to go home and they would also not let me call my parents, even though they told me I could. But when I asked again, they said that they never said that. Along with that, I also threw up the next morning and they still would not let me go home. overall this is a horrible camp do NOT send your children here EVER.

★Jacqui Oreskovich

DO NOT SEND YOUR DAUGHTER HERE IF SHE HAS DIETARY RESTRICTIONS!! We sent our daughter here for resident camp at the end of July. This was her first camp not only here but first week long overnight camp ever. First thing she did when we picked her up at the end of the week was ask me if I said she was a vegetarian. I thought this was weird, as she has no dietary restrictions. I told her no and she started crying saying that she was forced to eat vegetarian food all week. In hindsight, we should have stopped and talked to someone right then and there, but it took us 3 hours to get to the camp to pick her up and we were kind of in a rush to get home since it was already 7pm. Had we known all the details at the time and known that no one would respond to me, I would have talked to someone in person. After she calmed down, she told me that when she would go in line to get food, her counselor, named The Rock, would say that she needed to have the vegetarian option. She spoke up and said she’s not vegetarian and should be able to eat anything. The Rock said that her parents filled out the form that said she was vegetarian. My daughter asked if they could call me to verify and was told they will. The next day, she asked if I was called and was told I was. I never received a call from the camp. She is a very picky eater and did not like any of the food she was given because it is not food she is used to eating and would sometimes go hungry, One of the last days, she had a veggie burger and was still hungry. She went up to get seconds after everyone was served and was told they were out of veggie burgers. She said she saw regular hamburgers but couldn’t eat them so she had to go hungry. I called the camp the Monday after we got back to figure out what happened. After a couple attempts of calling and leaving messages, I finally got ahold of the camp director, Shannon. She first questioned how she was forced to eat vegetarian and said they just go in line and get what they want to eat. When I asked if this is true for girls who do truly have dietary restrictions as that is a little alarming to hear that they could eat anything even if they do have restrictions, she said that they have a sheet with who has restrictions and that The Rock must have looked at it wrong for my daughter. Shannon double checked my daughter‘s file and it did say she had no restrictions. Shannon also said that she is the one that would have called me to double check about the restrictions and never received a request to call me. I said I wanted to get The Rock‘s side of the story. She said The Rock was gone for the week and she’ll call me when she gets back at the end of the week. I never received a call. When I tried calling the camp to see what was going on, I found out they were closed for the summer. I tried calling the Girl Scout corporate number and never received a call back from anyone there as well. I’m really disappointed that this was never resolved. I just wanted to get the other side of the story about what happened. Luckily for me, my daughter didn’t have restrictions, but it is clear to me that they do not take dietary restrictions seriously there and am disappointed as to how this was handled. We will not be returning to this camp.

★★★★Jenny Meyer

Our troop stayed for a weekend on the Running Water campsite. It is a beautiful, wooded property with a cabin and 8 or 9 platform tents in back. The cabin has a kitchen and bathroom, both which could use some maintenance. The oven would not stay on and the doors on the bathroom stalls do not lock or stay shut. There are no showers. The main room has a gorgeous fireplace, but we didn’t use it so Im not sure if it is functional. What really needs improvement is the rock climbing and zip lining adventures. There were only two employees working with about 15 girls. It took way too long to get the girls into their harnesses. For zip lining the girls are expected to help carry a large ladder to get each girl down from the zip line. Parent chaperones had to step in to help because the ladder was too heavy. It took our troop over two hours to complete both activities, with a lot of waiting around in between. Overall, the campsite is very nice and we would stay there again.