This summer has been like no other. With COVID-19 on the rise, so much changed and many things shut down for the summer, but junior Emma Renz kept a constant with her summer job. She was a camp counselor at Wapelhorst Park.

As a counselor, she was with a group of children doing activities with them throughout the day. They would go to the pool and play games as a group. Renz enjoyed getting to hang out with the kids there and her coworkers.

“My favorite thing is working with the kids, and people from school also worked there so I got to hang out with them during my shift,” Renz said. 

Renz works at Wapelhorst for seven hours a day and averages 35 hours a week. Even though Renz worked a lot throughout the summer, she still got time to enjoy her break. 

“I got to go to the lake a couple times and I hung out with some of my friends,” Renz said. 

Despite her free time and enjoyment of her job, her first choice of employment was cancelled due to COVID-19: summer lifeguarding. Renz’s pool shut down because of the pandemic, so she went with her other option as a camp counselor for Wapelhorst Park. 

“It was definitely different than I excepted, but the staff at Wapelhorst made it very enjoyable,” junior coworker Bradyn Pearson said.

In addition to working as a camp counselor, Renz worked at a firework stand for a couple weeks in late June and early July. 

“Working at the fireworks stand was fun but could be rough sometimes because they were long 12 hour shifts on very hot days,” Renz said. “This was one of our busiest seasons.” 

Now that the summer is over, Renz has a part-time job at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Renz is working about 25 hours a week during school as a cashier.

“I worked at Dick’s because one of my close friends was already there and I would always be busy doing something and moving around,” Renz said. “I was excited to start at Dick’s because I was trying something new.”

Even though the summer was full of changes and developments with the pandemic, Renz worked hard as a camp counselor through COVID-19.

“Honestly, other than getting our temperatures taken before clocking in and paying attention to handwashing a lot more frequently, it really wasn’t different,” Renz said.