Westview on the James

★★Lily Inge

This was my daughter's first experience with sleepaway camp. She had severe homesickness unbeknownst to us until night 4 when we received an email from the camp Director. We picked her up the next morning. She has nothing but good things to say about the camp, however, this experience has triggered anxiety in her we never knew existed and issues being away from home are still ongoing three weeks later. My concerns: 1) My understanding is she asked/begged (daily) her counselors to call us. They told her they would but didn't for days. She would check back in with them and they said they were busy or couldn't get to it. Even though she liked her counselors and I know they spent a lot of time with her, I wish they had been truthful if there is some policy that prohibits parents from being contacted. But by lying to her, they broke her trust and she felt trapped. Once we were contacted late Wednesday night, I asked if we could speak to her. That question was never addressed. I later inquired about the homesickness, just trying to get a sense of how typical or not, it was since she has never had fear of change or separation before, also no response. 2) Because we picked up my daughter on Thursday instead of the normal pick up on Friday, we missed the opportunity to withdrawal unused camp funds. I'm told "there is no way to retrieve the leftover money." I find that hard to believe with technology these days. I wasn't even given an opportunity to do so in person. If this is your child's first experience with overnight camp, this may not be the camp for them as communication may be poor. If your child is seasoned at week long sleepover camps, this is probably a good one for them.

★★★★★Jody Wray

This year was our son's 5th year attending camp. The counselors are great. There's always a theme; mole week is his favorite. He makes friends that he gets to go back and see each year. He loves it and hopes to someday be able to be a counselor. Thank you Westview.

★Melanie Pace-Atkinson

While my daughter did enjoy her time here she came home with Impetigo (Google it) it took 3 doctors to get that diagnosis while it spread all over her body. I called the camp to inform them and they didn't seem to care or have any concern. Definitely not sending her there next year. I recommend camp willow run for similar CLEAN experience.

★★★★★Mackenzie Dodge

This is the best Catholic camp to send your child to. I went here a couple times and it was the best time I ever had. I made made many friends and the camp councelors are so nice.

★★Lucy Andreyev

It was our child’s first experience at this camp. What can we say. …The best experience he gained , that he was lucky to have nice counselors at his cabin and surrounded by his best friends.The cabin he stayed in consider as “upgraded “it smelled moldy 100!all bathrooms and showers are outside they were extremely dirty, and our kid was scared to go there… There were no hot water in showers and kids were given 3 min to finish their bath time in a cold water. Another concern we had our child his voice during his stay there. He told us at our pick up time why. He and other kids was pushed to yell Jesus name on their meet ups, and when he nicely asked the counselor not too, because it was painful for him, since he already did it so many times and lost his voice , the counselor response was: You can do it buddy!We belong to a nice church in Richmond area, and we did like the idea of Christian based camp that we are sending our kid too,but our child had never ever experienced anything like that in his life he actually told us it was traumatizing for him. He told us that he knows that Jesus , God, loves him and all others without counselors forcing kids to shout out Jesus name. He wrote us a few letters, sharing his concerns and telling about his experiences,until now we haven’t got them. Sorry , but most definitely we will be looking for different experiences for our kid next year.