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Jamie Jannusch Camp Director, Pretty Lake Camp
It's rare that what you really loved doing as a child becomes your vocation as an
adult, but Jamie Jannusch is one of the lucky ones. "I fell in love with camp from an early age,” says the 41-year-old Wisconsin native. My parents sent me to a Lutheran camping system in Wisconsin from the age of 7 to 17, so I spent 10 years as a camper. It truly had a profound effect on me." So much so that Jannusch majored in youth programming and camp management at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and has worked in summer camps since graduating. In February 2018, she joined the staff of Pretty Lake Camp, where she works to make sure the 800 campers that attend the free, nonprofit camp each summer have a similar experience. "The community of camp gives you a sense of belonging,” Jannusch says. “You know you're not just an odd duck or someone with a disability or someone who doesn't belong. All of a sudden you have a hundred people in the same setting that are your friends, and that sense of connecting with other people has truly transformed my life." How did you get where you are today? When I went to college, I really struggled trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I initially went as an art student and was planning to go into graphic design, but after my sophomore year I was like, "This major is not for me." At the time, a former coworker of mine was working at a camp yearround in California, and I realized that working at a camp was a career option. The funny thing is that the college I was attending had a natural resource program with a camp minor, which was changed into a youth programming and camp management major. It was a perfect windfall of things in my favor. Otherwise I don't think I would have had that light bulb go off, saying, "Yeah, you can make this a career." I graduated in 2003 and was hired at the Wisconsin Lions Camp, which serves children and adults with special needs, specifically (continued on page 37) 38 | ENCORE JULY 2021
