Jen Chase, 47, who laid plans to create the Pine Plains Summer Day Camp in 2006 and has been its director ever since, resigned her position at a town board meeting in September. But children still fill her days and nights. She’s mom to two teenagers, 13 and 15, and teaches kindergarten in the Pine Plains school district. Chase also served as the town’s recreation director from 2009-2011 and as peewee basketball director in 2010. That year, she also created the annual Stissing Triathlon, and served as its director through 2018. And she was beach director for the summer of 2021.
She was already teaching young children, in the Taconic Hills school district, when she moved to Pine Plains in 2003. She fell in love with the town. “I loved jogging around the lake, hiking the mountain, the little cafes,” she recalled. She started teaching summer school in town in 2005 and became a full-time kindergarten teacher in 2006. By November, she proposed to the town board and the Lions Club that the town needed a day camp, as she recounted to the Herald this summer. Gregg Pulver, then town supervisor, promised her whatever she needed to get it off the ground.
As Chase looks back on 18 years, certain highlights come flooding back. She’s proud of the structured program, which includes arts and crafts, sports, swimming, weekly story sessions at the Pine Plains Library, talent shows, and traveling presenters. “The Science Tellers hold the attention of 130 kids for an hour, and the reptile rescuer brings huge snakes and lizards out of their crates and walks them around, letting the kids hold them.” This year, for the first time, Keith Leaf, the “fire juggler,” entertained kids with juggling, dance, comedy and a touch of apparent danger. “It was mind-blowing.”
Chase solves problems in small-town ways. To meet regulations that an off-site nurse be available to the summer camp within 10 minutes, for example, “we always found someone who has children in camp who had certification, and we’d work out a deal so the child could come to camp for free and they would be my on-call person.” To keep kids cool and engaged during hot days when the lake was off limits due to contamination from non-migratory Canada geese, she brought in a giant waterslide, the “Big Kahuna.”
She’s particularly positive about the program for kids in middle school, which she started about seven years into the camp’s history. “Parents didn’t want to leave their kids at home to eat potato chips and sit around but they’re too young for summer jobs,” Chase explained. There’s a dedicated counselor, who takes them on several trips each week, such as to the rail trail in Millerton or Lake Taghkanic, where they can be more independent, yet still safe. “The kids need it and they love it,” she said.
A couple of years ago, Chase started thinking about “winding down” her time as director. Her kids were aging out of camp age, and it had been a good many years for her. She started training her assistant, Michaella Lamont, in all the aspects of the camp that a director needs to understand. They start planning together six months before the start of camp. “I started teaching her like a director. She has so much knowledge and the skills to run a program of this capacity—she’s an integral part of the program.”
Lamont, 25, a fourth-grade teacher in Dover during the school year, started as a group counselor at the camp about 10 years ago and became a specialty counselor, running sports and directing field trips—taking younger campers to Ronnybrook Farm, to Bounce Family Entertainment in Poughkeepsie, or just bowling—before becoming assistant director in 2021. In preparation for the 2023 season, though, she began working with Chase more intensely. “We started sharing all the roles,” Chase said.
By the spring of 2023, however, Chase realized the compensation had to change, too—the assistant director was only making one dollar more per hour than a counselor made. She and Lamont researched how much assistant directors were making at area camps and it was much higher than in Pine Plains. Chase went to the Town Board and made the case for a raise for her assistant. “I met with the town supervisor, Brian Walsh, and we agreed she should have a raise.” The board approved a raise.
About a week later, however, Chase got a call and was told that her own salary would be cut by $1,000. “The only explanation I got was that, well, your assistant got a raise,” she said. “The money isn’t really why I do this, but it was hurtful.” Over the 18 years since she first started planning the camp, she had only had one raise, and now she faced a cut. But it was already May, so she didn’t make the issue public. “I decided for the betterment of the camp, I would just move full steam ahead.” When she announced her resignation in September, however, she did go public. “The town board has always been so supportive and done anything that they could do to make the camp successful,” she said. “But I think they messed up, and I want them to fix it for the future of the program.”
Her concerns have been heard. Recently, town board member Sarah Jones explained that the budget had “lumped together” the salaries of the director and assistant director, so when the assistant director’s pay went up, the director’s pay was inadvertently reduced. “The decrease in the director’s line was then made in error,” said Jones. “This will be corrected in the coming year. We are sorry for the error that has been brought to our attention.”
“I hold Jen Chase in the highest regard,” Jones continued. “I think she’s a town hero really, because of what’s she’s accomplished with that camp. It’s the only camp in Dutchess County that successfully had camp during COVID. The camp has made money every year. She runs a wonderful camp, with employment opportunities for many young people.”
As for Lamont, she would definitely consider a promotion to being camp director—if it doesn’t entail a pay cut. “I grew up in Pine Plains, know the kids’ parents, know a lot of kids,” she said. “I would love to see the camp flourish.”
Over the years, Chase has seen children start as campers, come back as counselors, go to college, grow up. Some became teachers. “It’s one of the most amazing things that I got to watch some of those campers grow up,” she said. She’ll be keeping an eye out for the future of the camp. She hopes to see some of the programs she’s started expand, including the middle school program. “I hope it can morph into something even more amazing,” she said. The camp changes every year, and she is committed to helping the new director run it smoothly. “As times change, the camp needs to be able to grow with what campers need.”
She’s proud of what the camp has meant to children all these years. “The last day of camp every year, the entire camp, kindergarten age through middle school, hikes the mountain. They are so excited. I mean, they complain a little during the hike. Many kids who live in Pine Plains have never hiked the mountain that they can see from their backyard!” Lamont said, “We hike the mountain and then take the kids to a movie.” She added, “Jen always makes camp so much fun even though the amount of work is crazy. It’s all for the kids. We’re kids at heart.”
As for herself, Jen Chase isn’t exactly slowing down. She’s still teaching full time, and, at the end of last summer, completed the purchase of Hillsdale Fine Wines and Spirits. “It’s an amazing new adventure,” she reflected. “You know, something that was amazing with the camp is that I got to meet so many people and be part of so many children’s lives. Now I’m ready for the next phase where I get to meet a whole new set of people.”