Where to find nurses and lifeguards to work at a short camp?

July 29, 2008 9:40 AM

Where should I look to find lifeguards and nurses to staff the short non-profit camp in Maine that I help run?

Each year we seem to run into some problems with finding lifeguards and nurses and I am wondering if there is a group of people I should tap or website that I should be posting on that I've missed.

The camp runs the last two weeks of August (19- Sept 1), which rules out a bunch of college and high school students who have to go back to school at that time.

We run on a pretty small budget so while we do offer stipends for working there, we can't cover more than $100 of transportation costs per person so we can't ship people in from Europe or something like that.

We've so far tried: posting on Idealist, Craigslist, and contacting other camps in Maine directly to see if their counselors want to stay after normal camp session to work at ours.

Any other ideas?

posted by rmless to work & money (6 comments total)

The local chapter of the American red Cross?
posted by Gungho at 10:00 AM on July 29, 2008

I used to be a camp counselor and the two sites I looked for jobs most often were Camp Jobs and Cool Works.
posted by Ugh at 10:03 AM on July 29, 2008

Seconding Red Cross. Also you might want to flyer a college campus if you have one nearby, and contact their summer job postings department.
posted by phunniemee at 10:03 AM on July 29, 2008

There are medical recruiting agencies, like temp agencies, for nurses. There are also nurses who specialize in camps and travel nurses, who take assignments all over the world. Just Google the term "medical recruiter" with your locale and see what you can find.
posted by FergieBelle at 10:16 AM on July 29, 2008

I definitely used to get my lifeguarding jobs through the Red Cross.
posted by Jahaza at 11:32 AM on July 29, 2008

A nonprofit camp I know has used Bunac for many years. I think they sometimes get staff with specialized skills like nurses and lifeguards. It's a program for folks in the UK but I don't believe the camp pays their overseas travel costs. Might be worth looking into.
posted by yarrow at 11:33 AM on July 29, 2008