June 12, 2025 • 47 mins
The new millennium brings new trends, new technologies and new ways to spread toxic beauty standards. And Camp Shane is reaping the benefits. The camp grows to new heights and capitalizes on positive press, but a record number of campers puts serious strain on the staff and facilities. Can the camp handle the influx?
Camp Shane—one of America’s longest running weight loss camps for kids—promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution.
But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane’s facade of happy, transformed children. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. More than 50 years after its founding, host Kelsey Snelling is bringing the real story of Camp Shane to light.
In this eight-episode series, she unpacks and investigates stories of mistreatment and reexamines the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. Along the way, she reveals and weighs the heavy price of shame.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains descriptions of disordered eating and diet behavior.
We also mentioned specific weight and weight loss numbers. This
language could be sensitive for some listeners, so please take care.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mikey agreed to go to Camp Shane, which is a
weight loss camp for young kids, and Mikey is back.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Come on out here, Mikey. Okay, because good too.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Look we gotta pull that shirt back and see that.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Tell me, look at that. Look at this, guys, look
at this.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
This is crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
If you didn't recognize that voice, you didn't watch enough
America's next top model. What you just heard was Tigra
Banks on her talk show Smiles and All, celebrating a
twelve year old boy for his weight loss while fully
patting his now much smaller stomach. In the two thousands,
Camp Shane was riding high. It's message that weight loss
(00:54):
was the key to health and happiness had made its
way to TVs and magazines around the country. Enrollment was
at its highest ever, and the media was obsessed with
capturing it all. Welcome to Camp Shane, Camp Shane, Camp Shane.
More than ever, popular culture was buying into the promise
of Camp Shane weight loss at any cost. The messages
(01:18):
surrounding young people at the time were clear, if you
lose weight, society will love you more. Camp Shane gained
new magical traditions and more campers than ever before, but
it was also the point when the disillusioned counselors who
made Camp so special started leaving, and the safe haven
(01:38):
Selma built even with its flaws, began slipping away. This
is Camp Shame. I'm your host, Kelsey Snelling. In this episode, Oprah,
Tyra and Doctor Oz joined the Camp Shane bandwagon. New
leadership elevates Camp to unprecedented heights and and Shane becomes
(02:00):
a household name in a decade of heinous body shaming.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Nicole Ritchie, you are a little fuller, a little bit
more thicker, and how do you feel about the fact
that maybe the thickness may hinder you from getting certain
parts and doing certain things.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Jessica Simpson, people can't stop talking about it, saying she
looks back.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
The way you dress and stuff. I don't think you're
aware that you're a heavy set woman. That's what I said.
So I was guessing your weight and I was going
to say to you to today, can you please get
on the scale and then we'll have an over under
that's all.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
If you were a family member survived adolescence in the
two thousands, you may be eligible for financial compensation. I
remember it well, the era of flip phones, frosted tips,
and physics defying low rise genes. It was also an
era of rampant anti fat bias and body shaming. Somehow
society felt more obsessed than ever with body image.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
It was just popstars being splash on the covers of
magazines and tabloids, literally chronicling how big their bodies were.
It was young women being treated as commodities and not
human beings.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That's Yvet Dion Yvette is a culture journalist and pop
culture critic who examines the world through the lenses of race, gender,
and size.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
I remember the quest was to be able to wear
genes that were so low that you couldn't see the underwear,
but you could see fully the.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Abs of that time.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I just remember the two thousands being a time where
young people were encouraged to be hard on themselves and
hard on each other, and our pop culture reinforcing that,
our teachings enforcing that, everything that we were consuming enforcing that,
and really taking us to a place where none of
(03:59):
us were comfortable in our bodies.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
As someone who grew up in a bigger body, Yvette
is all too familiar with the scrutiny that people face
when their bodies don't meet the ideal, which was an
impossible feat. In the two thousands, the beauty standards were
honestly deranged. We saw it in reality TV makeover shows
like The Swan.
Speaker 8 (04:24):
Kathy's plan features several procedures. Starting with her face, She'll
have a browlift, nose job, nip and Huntsman fat injected
under her eyes, cheek fat removal and chemical peel, photo
facial collagen, laser hair removal, and Lasik eye surgery. For
Kathy's bodies, She'll have breast augmentation with nip, a lift,
and liposuction in six different areas.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Then there were shows like The Biggest Loser, which rewarded
contestants for losing exorbitant amounts of weight with huge cash prizes.
Ten more, ten more, ten more, ten more, ten more
ten I don't know if Greg's proud of vomit or not,
but I'm proud that I made him vomit.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Then that's all that matters.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Wait loss programs didn't just exist. They were now televised,
and people weren't turned off by it. In fact, they
couldn't get enough. And all of this seeped into the
minds of young, impressionable Americans.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
I'd like to look like Britney Spears.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
I'd like to have the bunds of steel and the
ads of gold, and you know, but I want to
lose thirty pounds for thirty five pounds.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
No matter where you turned, the media was overtly telling
people famous and not that their bodies were wrong and
needed to change. With this being the dominant message, a
place like Shane was an attractive alternative to being bullied, judged,
or ostra sized for your body size and all of
the assumptions that came along with it.
Speaker 6 (05:52):
When you are heavy set, people can think you're dumb, right.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
That's Carl Evans. He was a sharer in the two thousands.
As a black teenage boy, Carl was familiar with prejudice
and he understood how the world felt and thought about
fat people.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
But as a kid, I sort of had this omnipresent
sense of like my competency, intellectual competencies attached to it,
and I was like you who ended up in special
ed for reasons that mean my appearance and I still
couldn't figure.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Out what Carl's describing. That fatness, race, and intellect are
intertwined is a well enduring stereotype.
Speaker 9 (06:31):
Societies across time and place have always had one type
of body or another that they revere and others that
you know is less acceptable.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Doctor Lisa Erlinger, who you heard from last episode, is
a weight inclusive care doctor. She's done her fair share
of research into what's contributed to these stereotypes around fatness,
and one piece of that is race. In episode two,
we cover part of the history that led to fat
being demonized, but the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War
(07:06):
weren't the only things to blame for that shift. Well
before those events, white Americans were looking for ways to
create space between themselves and the societal connotations associated with
enslaved black people.
Speaker 9 (07:22):
The obsession with body size and the rise of that
can really be traced in the United States to the
time of chattel enslavement, and in the United States, that's
also when Protestantism characterized the white population and a desire
to differentiate the white population from the enslaved population and
(07:45):
to justify enslavement, and so enslaved people were often described
as being you know, not slaves to their white masters,
but rather to their sensuality. They couldn't stop eating, they
couldn't stop having, so they couldn't stop sleeping, and that therefore,
without white control, they would become fat and lazy and dumb.
(08:08):
And this was differentiated especially from the abstemious white woman
who controlled her sensuality and therefore achieved sort of moral
superiority and thinness.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
These stereotypes were used to oppress enslaved people and justify
the need for control by white masters. But as we
all know, there is no link between fatness and intelligence,
nor is there a link between race and intelligence. Unfortunately,
stereotypes are persistent, and Carl was no stranger to them.
(08:48):
Compelled by shame, Carl lied to his friends that he
was spending the summer with his uncle. He then flew
to New York and boarded a bus bound for Camp Shane.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
It's from the bus ride I had the dumb privilege
of being sitting near someone. It was right out of
the headway, sitting here the lifer at the camp, who
immediately because there weren't a lot of black kids at
the camp. Immediately was like, hey, you're new and I'm
like yes, and he's like where are you from? And
I'm like Chicago and he's like, oh great, and he's
from like Miami. But there's not a lot of Most
(09:21):
of the kids are from the East Coast, so I
stood out in two ways. He zeroed in on me.
And why that's important because right when I got off
the bus, I had my own like camp lure guide.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Having a camp lure guide at Shane was a privilege.
Lifers knew stuff. They knew how to smuggle in food,
they knew which counselors to go to for what, and
they knew the ever so important camp traditions. That first
year at Shane was pivotal for Carl.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
I achieved quite a bit. Is the first year at camp.
I set the camp weight loss record. At first, I
did something that I was told was a first and
that I won Camper of the Year as a first
year camper. And I had begun to have a very
professionally close relationship to Dave Edinburgh as a camper, and
(10:17):
by the end of that first summer, anything Dave Edinburgh
would have asked me to do, it would have done.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Carl was completely sold.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He loved camp and his parents loved the results even more.
That summer, he lost eighty seven pounds.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
I came back in the fall of two thousand and one,
half of who I was andy different, and my parents
just went up and down the family chain, sending pictures
and oh my God, and da da da, and this
place was amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
After his time as a camper, Carl became a full
time counselor. He was something of a poster child for
Camp Shane. After all, what was better for business than
weight loss results like Carl's.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
After my first summers, I was a true convert. I
researched my whole life around a commitment to Camp Shane
so that any labor opportunities, college opportunities, any opportunity could
not interfere with making sure I was back there in
the summer. And as a counselor, my mission was to
try to give kids the experience that I had, that
(11:22):
what I felt save in my life. And so those
first summers that I was a counselor, I was like,
this is giving me my life.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And it did become his life. Whatever David needed to
get or keep campers Carl was on it.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
As I went on as a counselor, I became a
very centralized cheerleader and supporter of the Camp Schen recruitment
promotional strategy.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Carl shared tips and tricks on how to retain campers
with fellow staff, and he convinced parents to sign their
kids up for next summer before the current summer was
even over. Because of people like Carl proselytize about camp,
the gospel of Shane spread far and wide.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
They would have me kind of free freewheel around the
camp and rope parents of target and see if I
couldn't softly, passively actively close them on. You know, they're
offering like half off if you lock in a deposit
for next summer, because we know a life for when
we see one.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Lifers were the kids that came back year after year
and for whom Camp Shane was a part of their
core identity.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Carl was a proud lifer.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
He saw what he was doing as a mission for
other kids to experience what he had.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
It's the most truest piece of advertising that's ever existed.
As a Camp Shane isn't just a place that's a
feeling that bubble helped me discover my sense of identity
in craft and becoming a human being that I am
proud to be to this day.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Being a lifer was a complicated badge of honor because
it meant you knew camps ins and outs, but it
also meant but you probably weren't keeping the weight off.
Despite this, Carl was more than happy to support Camp
Shane's mission even in the off season.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
In the off season, I was doing anything Dave asked
too in terms of recruitment and promotion. We wrote letters
and helped support and endorse and make connections to PR people.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
What Karl was doing could be called grassroots recruitment and
a diy PR campaign, and it worked. Camp Shane started
to catch the attention of major media outlets and its
visibility skyrocketed. In the early two thousands, MTV True Life
had a whole episode following Campers at Shane. That helps
(13:41):
knowing that.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
I'm not going to be judged because of the fact
that I'm massive. It's easy to meet the opposite texts.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's not just a clot like you could approach your
girl with confidence.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
This is a meat market, I guess.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Meryl Winter, a staff member at Camp Shane from two
thousand three until twenty fourteen, remembers a few others.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And then we had TLC come and do a series
where they followed kids around and track their progress throughout
the summer, and lindsay, I'm seventeen years old and I'm
from Seminol, Florida.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I feel like Camp Shane will be the starting point,
just the push I need to get me started on
a weight loss track.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
MTV came, they did made Meet Danielle.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
She's always been known as the fat girl. She's so much,
but now she's tired of what she sees. I'm going
to try to lose sixty pounds.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Twenty twenty came. There was always some media coverage going on.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Popular talk show hosts like Doctor oz Oprah Winfrey and
Barbara Walters also praised the transformative power of Camp Shane.
This was exactly what David needed. He was constantly on
calls trying to secure media coverage. The attention did wonders
for business, but it was spreading a harmful message, the
(15:00):
message that if you're fat, it's a personal failure and
only you are responsible for your excess weight. Places like
fat camps profit tremendously off of this dominant belief.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
This is all so deeply baked.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Into our culture that even the medical establishment seems incapable
of recognizing how entrenched fat phobia is in our world.
Camp Shane always benefited from this, but with the intensification
of the quote obesity epidemic in the two thousands, many
children were sent to fat camps at the recommendation of
their doctors, despite their actual health.
Speaker 9 (15:39):
Healthcare is almost symbolized by the ritual of stepping on
a scale as the first thing we.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Do, doctor Lisa Erlinger again.
Speaker 9 (15:49):
So much so that a scale, that tall scale that
we see in the doctor's office is even like emblematic
of medical care itself. The visit then becomes a response
to that numb on the scale.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
The weight centric approach means providers can overlook other important
health factors, leading to larger bodied patients getting misdiagnosed and
potentially worsening their conditions.
Speaker 9 (16:13):
There are many, many more providers who see weight as
an appropriate measure of health, an appropriate target for intervention,
and an appropriate outcome measure for health interventions.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The truly obnoxious part of all of this forced weighing
is that weight does a pretty crap job at predicting health.
We learned about this in episode three when we dove
into BMI. We all know fat people who are healthy.
Think about all of the body diversity we see in
top performing athletes like olympians, and we all know thin
(16:49):
people who are not. This is why it's so important
that healthcare providers listen and believe fat people when they
come in with issues not related to their weight. Back
in the two thousands, the CDC reported that there was
a forty five percent increase in childhood obesity between nineteen
ninety four and two thousand and two. Media coverage and
(17:12):
public health campaigns exacerbated the issue. The number of children
classified as overweight was rapidly climbing. Might I add in
spite of decades of dieting, Camp Shane was more in
vogue than ever, and after the MTV True Life episode
(17:34):
there was a huge spike in enrollment. Since David was
so busy with the business, he needed someone on the
ground not afraid to get their hands dirty, someone completely
entrenched in the Camp Shane way of life, someone who
could hold it all together while keeping Camp an engaging
place for high paying Shaners. Perhaps a charming and enthusiastic
(17:57):
British former race car driver. That would be Simon Greenwood.
You remember Simon, the All Star Camp America counselor. Well,
in two thousand and three, David promoted Simon to camp
director and people loved Simon.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
Simon was the glue of the camp. The campers understood
Dave is the owner of the camp, but everyone from
counselor to camp or understood that Simon was the boss.
Simon is always he He's a good guy, and he
knew what to do, and he ordered everyone else to
do it, and you did it, and you didn't suck
around or goof off when Simon was around, you know
what I mean. Simon had a mystique to him because
(18:37):
Simon also assembled things, like for the big games and
the big events. You always saw Simon leaving the charge
on building this thing or that thing.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Simon was especially influential for Carl. After Carl's first summers
as a counselor, he said.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I'm going to be doing what Simon Greenwood does one day,
like five ten years from now, I'm going to be
assistant director or director of this camp.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
There was a shift under Simon's leadership because, unlike David,
Simon had his hand in everything.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
Every facet of the camp. He would be responsible from
the kitchen staff to the laundry team, to housekeeping to maintenance,
keeping an eye on making sure counsels were where they're
supposed to be when they're supposed to be. And he
was a very respectful but good, solid leader about that
stuff in enforcing the parameters.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Camp had the potential to be so much better than
what it was offering. If anyone could help turn things around,
it was Simon. He started with the kitchen. As you
know by now, the food at Camp was a disappointment
at best.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
Food ordering was subsidiar quality basic. Not that they promoted
that they were giving Michelin Star menus, but the food
was always the bear basic.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Simon made things better than they were. Even if he
couldn't always get the money to support his ideas, he
made it happen. He managed to do a lot with
the little he was given. Meryl, who started working with
Simon in two thousand and three, had the impression that
he was really unhappy with the food quality at camp,
but he wasn't working with a big budget.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
So he figured out a way to spend the same
amount of money yet make the quality better. He went
in and he found if he got the spinach salad
and put the cranberries in it and whatever, and then
he would sit and make all of us have taste
tests to see if the quality was better, if the
kids would like it, and then he would have the
kids rate the food choices to see what they liked
(20:35):
the most so he could add it on the menu.
So he basically revamped the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Not gonna lie, I still dream of that spanich salad.
Simon seemed to remember that summer camp, fat camp or
not was all about fun and unforgettable memories. He went
above and beyond to achieve this, even though he didn't
have much to work with. Here's Carl again.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
I don't know the exact origin stories, but somehow he
got a bug up his butt to build a water slide.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Simon made something out of nothing by taking a bunch
of drainage tubing, running it down a hill, and using
water from the nearby water fountain for lubrication. But before
he could send campers down, he needed a test dummy.
In this instance, the best he could come up with
was a counselor.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
So they sent the council down. The council came down
and they, oh, my god, like this was like a
ribbed tubing, okay, and it hurt, Like He's like, this
hurts a lot. But the water part did work. It
was lubricated of wanted to go down, but the ribbing
just created your frictions.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
After much trial and error, Simon and his crew put
layers of plastic down to reduce the friction and give
more padding, and voila. He had created a ten to
fifteen yard water slide that became a camp staple.
Speaker 6 (22:02):
A delightful experience the kids got, because you know, that's
the best parts of Camp Shane were oftentimes these ad
hoc things.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Simon also used his craftiness to take one of Camp's
most beloved traditions to new heights. Many summer camps are
familiar with the tradition of color War. It happens the
final week of the summer. The camp is divided into
two teams, each represented by a color. In the case
(22:30):
of Camp Shane, there was the Orange team and the
Black team. Colour war had always been a big event
at Shane, but Simon and his team brought it to
the next level by adding an elaborate opening ceremony. The
ceremony was always after dark. The entire camp would be
(22:51):
sent to the soccer field and would sit with baited
breath beneath the starry catskillskies. The only light came from
tiki torches which surrounded the field and flickered in a magical,
witchy sort of way.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Then drums.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
You would have this thing where people dressed up in
indigenous native garb would appear out of the forces like entities,
and they'd be torch carrying. Building up this procession of
the arrival of two competing tribes that were indigenous to
the lands long ago. For the PC side, a gross
(23:36):
appropriation of Native American, Polynesian and a few other indigenous
tribal esthetics and ceremonial themes.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Now, the two thousands weren't known for being politically correct,
but I can't deny when I participated in my own
Color War a few years later, the spectacle of it
all was astounding.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
You see the fires pop up in the tree lines,
these pitch black tree lines, and these people who were
once your counselors are dressed in these wild war paints
and wearing the most minimal, minimal loin cloth and outfits,
and when they come out, they are game faced and
they're intense. And you, as a camper, watch these people
(24:22):
who are once your counselors come out affecting these indigenous warriors,
carrying princesses and chieftains, and they do these dances with fire,
these fire dances and these beautifully choreographed things to end.
You soundtracks and it's bombastic and it's absurd, but man,
(24:45):
it's all practical effects and it is magical music. Camper,
how was that? This is the coolest thing, regardless of
what happens afterwards. Opening ceremony, when done right, was just
a real piece of magic.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
This is what Simon did.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
He took the old standard camp traditions and transformed them
into magical experiences. He really amped up the next part
of Color War too.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Chimon would just come up with these ways of like
reappropriating space. The creative things he would do during Color
Wars where we're constructing things in the stadium for part
of entertainment and showcasing some sort of narrative that would
be interactive for the campers, where think of a gym
stadium cut the gym stadium in half, and you have
two teams of councilors who build some sort of theme
(25:35):
with their half of the gym. And when I say build,
I mean build, I mean you get to use real lumber.
You can run electrical lines.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Counselors would build entire worlds movie sets minus the movie,
to perform skits and dances for their color War teams
throughout the week. The theme might be Outer Space, under
the Sea, or King Kong. They'd craft buildings, fountains, and murals.
One year they even brought in live animals as part
(26:04):
of their set. It was like a mini Disney World
just for Shane.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
He could help facilitate sheer magic into being. He actively
engaged in the creative side and programming side that helped
counselors create experiences that would be life, you know, lifetime
memories for campers.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Camp was making good on the promise of a magical summer,
but behind the scenes it was a nightmare for David Attenburg. Meanwhile,
at Camp Shane, David still had his hands full with
his mother. Yeah, that was still going on. To be clear,
(26:51):
Selma hadn't owned Camp Shane for more than a decade.
At this point, but her pettiness was unmatched. From her
house across the street. She would call the cops if
staff used the PA system after nine pm on family
visiting day. If parents parked in the street illegally, she
would have their cars toaed. It was impossible for counselors
(27:13):
to ignore the tension. Their family squabbles were on full display,
but there were even bigger issues percolating to the surface.
By two thousand and four, enrollment had grown to its
highest ever, and it put a serious strain on the
staff and infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Here's Merrill again.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
We were busting at the seams. At that point. It
was like five hundred and seventy five kids. We had
over three hundred staff. It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
It wasn't just the campers that felt these growing pains.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Simon and his wife lived in like an apartment on
the side of a building. He had to move out
of those and those had to become bunks. We added
bunk bed into places where they could fit one more.
I think we had to bring in trailers to make bunks,
(28:07):
and we couldn't even fit into the cafeteria. The whole
camp was too big.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
But there was still an influx of cash, and that
was a good thing for David's business. To be fair,
he wasn't the only one in the weight loss business
making millions. Here's culture journalist Yvet Dion again.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
In the society that we live in, diet culture is
connected inherently to companies that profit from telling us that
things are wrong with our bodies. And so the dieting
industry is a billion dollar industry, meaning that these corporations
earn billions of dollars telling us that our bodies are
(28:50):
not good enough as they are. And so if you
go to this class, or if you take this pill,
or if you wear this waist trainer, you get to
have this ideal and I.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Put that in quotation marks body type.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
And so we become ensnared in the system that's selling
us our insecurities and then telling us they had the
solution to fix the insecurity that they're telling us.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
That we have.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
David was certainly making money by targeting children's in securities,
but he was not always forthcoming about that money, and
that got him into trouble. One day in the summer
of two thousand two, men in suits arrived at Campshane.
They stood out among the basketball shorts and baggy T
(29:39):
shirts that were ubiquitous at camp.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
At first, David didn't think much of it.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Occasionally, lawyers or caseworkers would show up to handle support
issues with specific campers. Turns out this time they wanted
to speak with David. They were representatives from the IRS,
and it wasn't good. Remember, this was what's the most
popular Shane had ever been, and a nine week session
(30:04):
cost a whopping sixty four hundred dollars. David was easily
raking in two million a summer. That's a lot of
money to be pulling in when the Feds are watching you,
and you best believe they were watching. In fact, the
IRS had an investigation underway. They had reason to believe
David wasn't reporting all of his taxable income. Still dealing
(30:29):
with the constant feuding with his mother, David was convinced
Selma had tipped them off. This wouldn't have been the
first time Selma tried to sabotage her son. As the
former owner, Selma had more than enough inside knowledge to
sell David out. In September two thousand and four, the
IRS finished their investigation. They'd uncovered that David had been
(30:51):
renting out the campgrounds to a church group and a
school group in the off season, and he had failed
to report more than one hundred thousand dollars in income.
Soon after, he pled guilty to tax evasion and faced
up to fourteen months in prison. That left everybody at
Shane with questions. With David gone, who would oversee camp,
(31:14):
who would manage the business? More importantly, would camp be
shut down? Of course, David didn't end up in prison,
not with our justice system. The judge who took his
case believed Camp Shane to be a noble project. In
his ruling, he said, though there is no question that
(31:35):
the offense is a serious one, given what I have
come to learn about mister Ettenburgh's circumstances and his life
of work, it would be a grave injustice and a
shame if anything were done that would have a serious
detrimental impact on Camp Shane. The judge gave David four
years of probation and four hundred hours of community service.
(31:57):
He also made David pay nearly sixty thousand dollars in
restitution and fees, and ordered him to give fifty scholarships
to underprivileged kids over the.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Next four years.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
As a result of the conviction, the American Camp Association
or ACA, removed Camp Shane's accreditation. This meant it no
longer met the ACA's guidelines for safety, health, program quality,
and management practices. Shane could still operate shore, but without
that gold star Camp Shane could lose the confidence of
(32:31):
customers and the media that trusted the camp to uphold
certain standards of care and safety. Side note, this wasn't
the first time Shane had lost ACA accreditation. In two
thousand and one, it was temporarily revoked for poor reviews
and inspection results yikes. Throughout the investigation, David basically had
(32:54):
free legal counsel. His wife, Suppora, a New York Bar
approved attorney rep, presented him. When the end of David's
probation was coming up. Zuppora wrote a letter requesting that
David be released from probation early. They wanted their ACA
accreditation back for the upcoming summer. As the camp owner,
(33:15):
David needed to be off probation so that the ACA
could come to an inspection. According to Zappora's letter, which
was written to the judge, the ACA withdrawal had far
reaching consequences, one being that quote media that have been
interested in doing programs and stories on the camp have
backed away the letter worked. By now it was the
(33:39):
mid two thousands, David was off the hook and went
straight back to business. Camp Shane began expanding beyond Ferndale,
New York. In two thousand and seven, they started opening
satellite camps. Small resort style versions of Camp Shane started
popping up across the country. California, Georgia, and Wisconsin were
(33:59):
just a f These camps were very different from Ferndale.
Instead of being in cabins surrounded by lush green woods,
campers were usually on college campuses and dorms that were
rented for the summer by Shane. This was one way
for David to grow his empire without taking on too
many extra costs. Back at the main camp in Ferndale, though,
(34:22):
the money wasn't exactly trickling down. Some new cabins were built,
but equipment was breaking down.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Things would not be repaired for a very very long time,
and not because Simon wasn't capable or didn't have it
on his docket to do it. Was the stringency of
the way the budget would be. Day would just stretch it.
He would do without, so there were any number of
places instruments on camp that sometimes when they broke, they
were done. Go carts and Doom Buggi's is the most notorious,
(34:50):
where they'd be running in fully operational at the start
of the summer. A man, you get to anything that
costs more than like twenty five bucks to fix or
replace and Simon totally bagshu, but it's not getting replaced.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
These refusals to make seemingly small fixes were frustrating for
Karl and other counselors, and they were starting to create
tension between the staff and David.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
All these things are happening that the answers are we
need more investment in the camp, you know what I mean,
Like we could win this, Like we can get Dave
to convert and open up the pocketbook. He's being stubborn
in whatever because it's his job to be conservative on
the money and blah.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
By two thousand and seven, there was what Karl described
as a war behind the scenes between David and the staff.
He said that David didn't want to spend money while
the counselors advocated for some reinvestment in the camp.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
A complete and critical breakdown in the core cultural factors
of the camp. You always have this core returning staff.
What started to happen in the nineties and then fully
exploded in my time was you also had the camp
or counselor phenomenon where you could have started as a
as a camper and then became a councerort. So like
by the late nineties and into the two thousands, you
(36:04):
saw people who had already put in six years as
a camper became a counselor. And what they did is
that it reinforced what was already a fraternal, surroyal sort
of sense of the camp. You took ownership of the traditions,
you really believed in them. So as staff investment cheaped
out and you started to lose.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That, the passion that kept those lifers coming back year
after year started waning. As their pay didn't reflect the time,
sweat and energy they'd put into Shane, especially for as
long as many of them had been there.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Some counselors who were multiple year concerts were given the
same static pay. Well that's bullshit, and people are going
to going to go somewhere. You know.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Longtime staff stopped returning in bigger numbers and the new staff.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
Well, they were barely there for the campers, and they're
more interested in hitting the bar.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
And the counselors who were sticking around and trying to
be there for the kids found themselves taking on more
and more specialized and haphazard responsibilities. Merril Winter, who was
still working as a group leader in two thousand and eight,
remembers once when the nurse took a day off, the
(37:17):
sub never showed up, so it was somehow Meryll's job
to fill in.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I remember we were giving out the meds and they
were some heavy duty meds. All the kids, thank god,
got the right meds and everything was great, But it
shouldn't have been me that was giving them out. That
was a scary one.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Counselors were also now working with a new demographic of
camper who needed even more medical attention. To Merrill, it
seems like David was willing to let anyone in just
to make a few more dollars, even if they were
kids who camp Shane couldn't properly and responsibly take on.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Kids would come straight from rehab facilities, not a lot,
but it happened, kids would be mentally unstable. They would
come on meds that we couldn't get because they were
from another country. Certain things like that, where you know,
(38:17):
he wouldn't have to deal with it. We would have
to deal with it, and we would have to find
a way to make life nice and safe.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
But making sure the counselors felt equipped to handle the
needs of their campers wasn't David's concern.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
He was happy with bodies in camp, whether they'd be
kids or counselors. You know, as long as the counselors
were a body that was there and he met the
ratio of how many staff to kids, he was happy.
Didn't matter if they were doing things that were unethical
(38:56):
or dangerous. And I don't mean he meant to put
the kids at harm. He was just, you know, if
it's let me just slide by the summer and we
could start fresh next summer, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
In two thousand and eight, Carl didn't feel that Camp
Shane was equipped to care for campers with specialized medical needs.
Although they advertised having psychology professionals, the people hired didn't
always meet the required qualifications. They were often in training
or in the process of getting their degrees.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
So there were kids who were living with mental challenges
and were on the spectrum who should not come to
a place that doesn't have the medical and clinical trainee
to monitor them for twenty four hours or twelve hours
of time. Kids who could not necessarily be legitimately autonomously
living individuals. And that's what that was, like the final
(39:57):
pressure breaker on Champchine.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Maybe if camp had the qualified medical professionals that it
claimed to have, it's possible they could have properly cared
for these kids, but that wasn't the case.
Speaker 6 (40:11):
Two thousand and eight was the place where, like we
were still trying to run it as the feel good,
happy time, but there were so many kids who had
behavioral disorders. Counsel didn't give a shit campers who were
super toxic that you were putting out fires every single
day as opposed to putting joy in people's hearts. And
so that was the real sort of like degrading of everything.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Carl started to realize that Selma's safe haven, the one
for kids growing up in an anti fat society, was
beginning to slip away in.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
The least model words possible. You had skinny kids coming
who shouldn't be there, who you're probably generating you know,
disordered thinking and unhealthy relationships to food. By sending them
to a fat camp and they're just the kid with
the biggest waste size in their social group at home.
It putrefied the social environment because now you had skinny
kids back in fields with obese kids and heavyweight kids.
(41:09):
And it's high school, right, so the skinnier girls got
all the attention. It threw everything off.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
For someone who'd poured his heart and soul into camp,
this breakdown really affected Carl.
Speaker 6 (41:24):
I had a really sad moment happened where I kind
of knew it wasn't going to come back at the
closing night of that summer where I was listening to
a counselor, a first year counselor excitedly talk about man
next year, and I realized, like, I have no excitement
for next year. And that was the first time I
never had ever felt that, And it was like feeling
(41:45):
a trapdoor open in the bottom of your soul, like
you know the way everyone felt when bingbong, like faded
away in the middle of inside out by.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
You made it.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
No save Riley, take her to the mood for me.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Okay, Carl returned one last time but it was more
out of obligation than excitement, and he certainly didn't restructure
his whole summer around camp like he used to. Here's
how Carl remembers that final summer.
Speaker 6 (42:27):
In two thousand and nine. I came to help the
camp halfway through the summer. I could only do half
a summer, and I came as maintenance and punched in.
But I also did a huge amount of work as
a counselor basically as it a de facto like assistant
head counselor. Well, at the end of the summer, I
was waiting for my punch and page when I clocked
(42:49):
in and clocked out every day in the hour, and
Dave was like, well, I thought you did this for free.
Classic I had watched and tried to advocate for counselors
who felt they were underpaid. Okay, you know, but hey, Dave,
come on, let's talk about this and and we get
heated privately right Well, now, only I had this conversation
with Dave about justifying somebody's pay and he's looking at
(43:11):
me despite an email thread that we had me and
Simon had about discussing the rate my hourly rate and
when I'm be coming in it, and Dave just stight
up said, well, I guess that's a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Shirley Simon, who always had his staff's back, who was
rumored to bleed orange, and whom Carl idolized, would step
in and save the day.
Speaker 6 (43:35):
And I'm having this argument with him. Well, Simon's sitting
right next to him. So I looked at Simon, said, bro, like,
you have the emails right there on your computer. And
then Simon stops, looks at Dave, then looks back at me.
You know, it makes me, you know, I'm trying to cry,
it like, and he's like, I think we've had a mistake.
(44:00):
And Simon freaking sent me up the river too, like
he didn't. If Simon had put his foot down, I
should have gotten the full pay. But he just like, oh,
I guess it was a misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Carl was on his own.
Speaker 6 (44:18):
So then Dave gets to look at me and be like, oh, well,
that's not my fault, because whatever you and Simon talked about,
I think the pay I would have been owed was
something above eleven hundred bucks. I walked down that room
feeling like a prostitute because he gave me like three
hundred bucks cash from like a petty envelope. I gotta
tell you, I never saw that coming. So that was brutal.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Here was Carl, former star camper and near celebrity counselor
who recruited, marketed, and wholeheartedly believed in the Camp Shane mission,
on the receiving end of David's penny pinching tendencies. Camp
had turned into something he no longer recognized.
Speaker 6 (44:56):
The politics, all the bullshit that we had. Some of
us had thought it was fiscal concernancy. It came out
as these are dishonorable decisions, not miserly decisions, but dishonorable ones.
And the curtain was down. Now the bad things that
were happening weren't happening because of like the innocence of
tough financial decisions. Bad things were happening because Dave. A
(45:21):
lot of us finally were realizing, like, this is ethically
not a good person.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Next time on Camp Shame, we just were like, what
do we do?
Speaker 10 (45:33):
It is our job to promote a camp now that
is essentially condoning behavior that we don't agree with, that
is actually really fucked up behavior, Like I just I
can't be here anymore I.
Speaker 7 (45:43):
Have to go.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
We reached out to Simon Greenwood, David Attenburg and his
wife Supporta Janowski for comment. At the time of this recording,
we have not received a reply. Camp Shame is a
production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host Kelsey Snelling. Camp
Shame is produced by Brittany Martinez, Taylor Williamson, Sarah Schlead,
Lucy Jones.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
And Aliah Yates Grau.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Our editor is Courtney Hameister, with additional editorial support from
Lindsay Cradowell and Grace Lynch. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan,
Emily Rutter and me Kelsey Snelling for iHeartMedia. Our executive
producer is Christina Everett. Fact checking done by Madeline Gore,
Lucy Jones, Paloma Moreno, Jimenez, Lauren Williams, and Fiona Pastana.
(46:34):
Our theme music is produced by Sean Patel. Listen and
subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at camp Shame.
That's with an M. If you or anyone you know
went to Camp Shane, reach out with your camp stories.
Speaker 9 (47:00):
Yeah,
This episode contains descriptions of disordered eating and diet behavior.
We also mentioned specific weight and weight loss numbers. This
language could be sensitive for some listeners, so please take care.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mikey agreed to go to Camp Shane, which is a
weight loss camp for young kids, and Mikey is back.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Come on out here, Mikey. Okay, because good too.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Look we gotta pull that shirt back and see that.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Tell me, look at that. Look at this, guys, look
at this.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
This is crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
If you didn't recognize that voice, you didn't watch enough
America's next top model. What you just heard was Tigra
Banks on her talk show Smiles and All, celebrating a
twelve year old boy for his weight loss while fully
patting his now much smaller stomach. In the two thousands,
Camp Shane was riding high. It's message that weight loss
(00:54):
was the key to health and happiness had made its
way to TVs and magazines around the country. Enrollment was
at its highest ever, and the media was obsessed with
capturing it all. Welcome to Camp Shane, Camp Shane, Camp Shane.
More than ever, popular culture was buying into the promise
of Camp Shane weight loss at any cost. The messages
(01:18):
surrounding young people at the time were clear, if you
lose weight, society will love you more. Camp Shane gained
new magical traditions and more campers than ever before, but
it was also the point when the disillusioned counselors who
made Camp so special started leaving, and the safe haven
(01:38):
Selma built even with its flaws, began slipping away. This
is Camp Shame. I'm your host, Kelsey Snelling. In this episode, Oprah,
Tyra and Doctor Oz joined the Camp Shane bandwagon. New
leadership elevates Camp to unprecedented heights and and Shane becomes
(02:00):
a household name in a decade of heinous body shaming.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Nicole Ritchie, you are a little fuller, a little bit
more thicker, and how do you feel about the fact
that maybe the thickness may hinder you from getting certain
parts and doing certain things.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
Jessica Simpson, people can't stop talking about it, saying she
looks back.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
The way you dress and stuff. I don't think you're
aware that you're a heavy set woman. That's what I said.
So I was guessing your weight and I was going
to say to you to today, can you please get
on the scale and then we'll have an over under
that's all.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
If you were a family member survived adolescence in the
two thousands, you may be eligible for financial compensation. I
remember it well, the era of flip phones, frosted tips,
and physics defying low rise genes. It was also an
era of rampant anti fat bias and body shaming. Somehow
society felt more obsessed than ever with body image.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
It was just popstars being splash on the covers of
magazines and tabloids, literally chronicling how big their bodies were.
It was young women being treated as commodities and not
human beings.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That's Yvet Dion Yvette is a culture journalist and pop
culture critic who examines the world through the lenses of race, gender,
and size.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
I remember the quest was to be able to wear
genes that were so low that you couldn't see the underwear,
but you could see fully the.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Abs of that time.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I just remember the two thousands being a time where
young people were encouraged to be hard on themselves and
hard on each other, and our pop culture reinforcing that,
our teachings enforcing that, everything that we were consuming enforcing that,
and really taking us to a place where none of
(03:59):
us were comfortable in our bodies.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
As someone who grew up in a bigger body, Yvette
is all too familiar with the scrutiny that people face
when their bodies don't meet the ideal, which was an
impossible feat. In the two thousands, the beauty standards were
honestly deranged. We saw it in reality TV makeover shows
like The Swan.
Speaker 8 (04:24):
Kathy's plan features several procedures. Starting with her face, She'll
have a browlift, nose job, nip and Huntsman fat injected
under her eyes, cheek fat removal and chemical peel, photo
facial collagen, laser hair removal, and Lasik eye surgery. For
Kathy's bodies, She'll have breast augmentation with nip, a lift,
and liposuction in six different areas.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Then there were shows like The Biggest Loser, which rewarded
contestants for losing exorbitant amounts of weight with huge cash prizes.
Ten more, ten more, ten more, ten more, ten more
ten I don't know if Greg's proud of vomit or not,
but I'm proud that I made him vomit.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Then that's all that matters.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Wait loss programs didn't just exist. They were now televised,
and people weren't turned off by it. In fact, they
couldn't get enough. And all of this seeped into the
minds of young, impressionable Americans.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
I'd like to look like Britney Spears.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
I'd like to have the bunds of steel and the
ads of gold, and you know, but I want to
lose thirty pounds for thirty five pounds.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
No matter where you turned, the media was overtly telling
people famous and not that their bodies were wrong and
needed to change. With this being the dominant message, a
place like Shane was an attractive alternative to being bullied, judged,
or ostra sized for your body size and all of
the assumptions that came along with it.
Speaker 6 (05:52):
When you are heavy set, people can think you're dumb, right.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
That's Carl Evans. He was a sharer in the two thousands.
As a black teenage boy, Carl was familiar with prejudice
and he understood how the world felt and thought about
fat people.
Speaker 6 (06:09):
But as a kid, I sort of had this omnipresent
sense of like my competency, intellectual competencies attached to it,
and I was like you who ended up in special
ed for reasons that mean my appearance and I still
couldn't figure.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Out what Carl's describing. That fatness, race, and intellect are
intertwined is a well enduring stereotype.
Speaker 9 (06:31):
Societies across time and place have always had one type
of body or another that they revere and others that
you know is less acceptable.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Doctor Lisa Erlinger, who you heard from last episode, is
a weight inclusive care doctor. She's done her fair share
of research into what's contributed to these stereotypes around fatness,
and one piece of that is race. In episode two,
we cover part of the history that led to fat
being demonized, but the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War
(07:06):
weren't the only things to blame for that shift. Well
before those events, white Americans were looking for ways to
create space between themselves and the societal connotations associated with
enslaved black people.
Speaker 9 (07:22):
The obsession with body size and the rise of that
can really be traced in the United States to the
time of chattel enslavement, and in the United States, that's
also when Protestantism characterized the white population and a desire
to differentiate the white population from the enslaved population and
(07:45):
to justify enslavement, and so enslaved people were often described
as being you know, not slaves to their white masters,
but rather to their sensuality. They couldn't stop eating, they
couldn't stop having, so they couldn't stop sleeping, and that therefore,
without white control, they would become fat and lazy and dumb.
(08:08):
And this was differentiated especially from the abstemious white woman
who controlled her sensuality and therefore achieved sort of moral
superiority and thinness.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
These stereotypes were used to oppress enslaved people and justify
the need for control by white masters. But as we
all know, there is no link between fatness and intelligence,
nor is there a link between race and intelligence. Unfortunately,
stereotypes are persistent, and Carl was no stranger to them.
(08:48):
Compelled by shame, Carl lied to his friends that he
was spending the summer with his uncle. He then flew
to New York and boarded a bus bound for Camp Shane.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
It's from the bus ride I had the dumb privilege
of being sitting near someone. It was right out of
the headway, sitting here the lifer at the camp, who
immediately because there weren't a lot of black kids at
the camp. Immediately was like, hey, you're new and I'm
like yes, and he's like where are you from? And
I'm like Chicago and he's like, oh great, and he's
from like Miami. But there's not a lot of Most
(09:21):
of the kids are from the East Coast, so I
stood out in two ways. He zeroed in on me.
And why that's important because right when I got off
the bus, I had my own like camp lure guide.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Having a camp lure guide at Shane was a privilege.
Lifers knew stuff. They knew how to smuggle in food,
they knew which counselors to go to for what, and
they knew the ever so important camp traditions. That first
year at Shane was pivotal for Carl.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
I achieved quite a bit. Is the first year at camp.
I set the camp weight loss record. At first, I
did something that I was told was a first and
that I won Camper of the Year as a first
year camper. And I had begun to have a very
professionally close relationship to Dave Edinburgh as a camper, and
(10:17):
by the end of that first summer, anything Dave Edinburgh
would have asked me to do, it would have done.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Carl was completely sold.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He loved camp and his parents loved the results even more.
That summer, he lost eighty seven pounds.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
I came back in the fall of two thousand and one,
half of who I was andy different, and my parents
just went up and down the family chain, sending pictures
and oh my God, and da da da, and this
place was amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
After his time as a camper, Carl became a full
time counselor. He was something of a poster child for
Camp Shane. After all, what was better for business than
weight loss results like Carl's.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
After my first summers, I was a true convert. I
researched my whole life around a commitment to Camp Shane
so that any labor opportunities, college opportunities, any opportunity could
not interfere with making sure I was back there in
the summer. And as a counselor, my mission was to
try to give kids the experience that I had, that
(11:22):
what I felt save in my life. And so those
first summers that I was a counselor, I was like,
this is giving me my life.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And it did become his life. Whatever David needed to
get or keep campers Carl was on it.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
As I went on as a counselor, I became a
very centralized cheerleader and supporter of the Camp Schen recruitment
promotional strategy.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Carl shared tips and tricks on how to retain campers
with fellow staff, and he convinced parents to sign their
kids up for next summer before the current summer was
even over. Because of people like Carl proselytize about camp,
the gospel of Shane spread far and wide.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
They would have me kind of free freewheel around the
camp and rope parents of target and see if I
couldn't softly, passively actively close them on. You know, they're
offering like half off if you lock in a deposit
for next summer, because we know a life for when
we see one.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Lifers were the kids that came back year after year
and for whom Camp Shane was a part of their
core identity.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Carl was a proud lifer.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
He saw what he was doing as a mission for
other kids to experience what he had.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
It's the most truest piece of advertising that's ever existed.
As a Camp Shane isn't just a place that's a
feeling that bubble helped me discover my sense of identity
in craft and becoming a human being that I am
proud to be to this day.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Being a lifer was a complicated badge of honor because
it meant you knew camps ins and outs, but it
also meant but you probably weren't keeping the weight off.
Despite this, Carl was more than happy to support Camp
Shane's mission even in the off season.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
In the off season, I was doing anything Dave asked
too in terms of recruitment and promotion. We wrote letters
and helped support and endorse and make connections to PR people.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
What Karl was doing could be called grassroots recruitment and
a diy PR campaign, and it worked. Camp Shane started
to catch the attention of major media outlets and its
visibility skyrocketed. In the early two thousands, MTV True Life
had a whole episode following Campers at Shane. That helps
(13:41):
knowing that.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
I'm not going to be judged because of the fact
that I'm massive. It's easy to meet the opposite texts.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's not just a clot like you could approach your
girl with confidence.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
This is a meat market, I guess.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Meryl Winter, a staff member at Camp Shane from two
thousand three until twenty fourteen, remembers a few others.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
And then we had TLC come and do a series
where they followed kids around and track their progress throughout
the summer, and lindsay, I'm seventeen years old and I'm
from Seminol, Florida.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I feel like Camp Shane will be the starting point,
just the push I need to get me started on
a weight loss track.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
MTV came, they did made Meet Danielle.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
She's always been known as the fat girl. She's so much,
but now she's tired of what she sees. I'm going
to try to lose sixty pounds.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Twenty twenty came. There was always some media coverage going on.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Popular talk show hosts like Doctor oz Oprah Winfrey and
Barbara Walters also praised the transformative power of Camp Shane.
This was exactly what David needed. He was constantly on
calls trying to secure media coverage. The attention did wonders
for business, but it was spreading a harmful message, the
(15:00):
message that if you're fat, it's a personal failure and
only you are responsible for your excess weight. Places like
fat camps profit tremendously off of this dominant belief.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
This is all so deeply baked.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Into our culture that even the medical establishment seems incapable
of recognizing how entrenched fat phobia is in our world.
Camp Shane always benefited from this, but with the intensification
of the quote obesity epidemic in the two thousands, many
children were sent to fat camps at the recommendation of
their doctors, despite their actual health.
Speaker 9 (15:39):
Healthcare is almost symbolized by the ritual of stepping on
a scale as the first thing we.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Do, doctor Lisa Erlinger again.
Speaker 9 (15:49):
So much so that a scale, that tall scale that
we see in the doctor's office is even like emblematic
of medical care itself. The visit then becomes a response
to that numb on the scale.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
The weight centric approach means providers can overlook other important
health factors, leading to larger bodied patients getting misdiagnosed and
potentially worsening their conditions.
Speaker 9 (16:13):
There are many, many more providers who see weight as
an appropriate measure of health, an appropriate target for intervention,
and an appropriate outcome measure for health interventions.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The truly obnoxious part of all of this forced weighing
is that weight does a pretty crap job at predicting health.
We learned about this in episode three when we dove
into BMI. We all know fat people who are healthy.
Think about all of the body diversity we see in
top performing athletes like olympians, and we all know thin
(16:49):
people who are not. This is why it's so important
that healthcare providers listen and believe fat people when they
come in with issues not related to their weight. Back
in the two thousands, the CDC reported that there was
a forty five percent increase in childhood obesity between nineteen
ninety four and two thousand and two. Media coverage and
(17:12):
public health campaigns exacerbated the issue. The number of children
classified as overweight was rapidly climbing. Might I add in
spite of decades of dieting, Camp Shane was more in
vogue than ever, and after the MTV True Life episode
(17:34):
there was a huge spike in enrollment. Since David was
so busy with the business, he needed someone on the
ground not afraid to get their hands dirty, someone completely
entrenched in the Camp Shane way of life, someone who
could hold it all together while keeping Camp an engaging
place for high paying Shaners. Perhaps a charming and enthusiastic
(17:57):
British former race car driver. That would be Simon Greenwood.
You remember Simon, the All Star Camp America counselor. Well,
in two thousand and three, David promoted Simon to camp
director and people loved Simon.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
Simon was the glue of the camp. The campers understood
Dave is the owner of the camp, but everyone from
counselor to camp or understood that Simon was the boss.
Simon is always he He's a good guy, and he
knew what to do, and he ordered everyone else to
do it, and you did it, and you didn't suck
around or goof off when Simon was around, you know
what I mean. Simon had a mystique to him because
(18:37):
Simon also assembled things, like for the big games and
the big events. You always saw Simon leaving the charge
on building this thing or that thing.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Simon was especially influential for Carl. After Carl's first summers
as a counselor, he said.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I'm going to be doing what Simon Greenwood does one day,
like five ten years from now, I'm going to be
assistant director or director of this camp.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
There was a shift under Simon's leadership because, unlike David,
Simon had his hand in everything.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
Every facet of the camp. He would be responsible from
the kitchen staff to the laundry team, to housekeeping to maintenance,
keeping an eye on making sure counsels were where they're
supposed to be when they're supposed to be. And he
was a very respectful but good, solid leader about that
stuff in enforcing the parameters.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Camp had the potential to be so much better than
what it was offering. If anyone could help turn things around,
it was Simon. He started with the kitchen. As you
know by now, the food at Camp was a disappointment
at best.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
Food ordering was subsidiar quality basic. Not that they promoted
that they were giving Michelin Star menus, but the food
was always the bear basic.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Simon made things better than they were. Even if he
couldn't always get the money to support his ideas, he
made it happen. He managed to do a lot with
the little he was given. Meryl, who started working with
Simon in two thousand and three, had the impression that
he was really unhappy with the food quality at camp,
but he wasn't working with a big budget.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
So he figured out a way to spend the same
amount of money yet make the quality better. He went
in and he found if he got the spinach salad
and put the cranberries in it and whatever, and then
he would sit and make all of us have taste
tests to see if the quality was better, if the
kids would like it, and then he would have the
kids rate the food choices to see what they liked
(20:35):
the most so he could add it on the menu.
So he basically revamped the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Not gonna lie, I still dream of that spanich salad.
Simon seemed to remember that summer camp, fat camp or
not was all about fun and unforgettable memories. He went
above and beyond to achieve this, even though he didn't
have much to work with. Here's Carl again.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
I don't know the exact origin stories, but somehow he
got a bug up his butt to build a water slide.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Simon made something out of nothing by taking a bunch
of drainage tubing, running it down a hill, and using
water from the nearby water fountain for lubrication. But before
he could send campers down, he needed a test dummy.
In this instance, the best he could come up with
was a counselor.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
So they sent the council down. The council came down
and they, oh, my god, like this was like a
ribbed tubing, okay, and it hurt, Like He's like, this
hurts a lot. But the water part did work. It
was lubricated of wanted to go down, but the ribbing
just created your frictions.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
After much trial and error, Simon and his crew put
layers of plastic down to reduce the friction and give
more padding, and voila. He had created a ten to
fifteen yard water slide that became a camp staple.
Speaker 6 (22:02):
A delightful experience the kids got, because you know, that's
the best parts of Camp Shane were oftentimes these ad
hoc things.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Simon also used his craftiness to take one of Camp's
most beloved traditions to new heights. Many summer camps are
familiar with the tradition of color War. It happens the
final week of the summer. The camp is divided into
two teams, each represented by a color. In the case
(22:30):
of Camp Shane, there was the Orange team and the
Black team. Colour war had always been a big event
at Shane, but Simon and his team brought it to
the next level by adding an elaborate opening ceremony. The
ceremony was always after dark. The entire camp would be
(22:51):
sent to the soccer field and would sit with baited
breath beneath the starry catskillskies. The only light came from
tiki torches which surrounded the field and flickered in a magical,
witchy sort of way.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Then drums.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
You would have this thing where people dressed up in
indigenous native garb would appear out of the forces like entities,
and they'd be torch carrying. Building up this procession of
the arrival of two competing tribes that were indigenous to
the lands long ago. For the PC side, a gross
(23:36):
appropriation of Native American, Polynesian and a few other indigenous
tribal esthetics and ceremonial themes.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Now, the two thousands weren't known for being politically correct,
but I can't deny when I participated in my own
Color War a few years later, the spectacle of it
all was astounding.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
You see the fires pop up in the tree lines,
these pitch black tree lines, and these people who were
once your counselors are dressed in these wild war paints
and wearing the most minimal, minimal loin cloth and outfits,
and when they come out, they are game faced and
they're intense. And you, as a camper, watch these people
(24:22):
who are once your counselors come out affecting these indigenous warriors,
carrying princesses and chieftains, and they do these dances with fire,
these fire dances and these beautifully choreographed things to end.
You soundtracks and it's bombastic and it's absurd, but man,
(24:45):
it's all practical effects and it is magical music. Camper,
how was that? This is the coolest thing, regardless of
what happens afterwards. Opening ceremony, when done right, was just
a real piece of magic.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
This is what Simon did.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
He took the old standard camp traditions and transformed them
into magical experiences. He really amped up the next part
of Color War too.
Speaker 6 (25:11):
Chimon would just come up with these ways of like
reappropriating space. The creative things he would do during Color
Wars where we're constructing things in the stadium for part
of entertainment and showcasing some sort of narrative that would
be interactive for the campers, where think of a gym
stadium cut the gym stadium in half, and you have
two teams of councilors who build some sort of theme
(25:35):
with their half of the gym. And when I say build,
I mean build, I mean you get to use real lumber.
You can run electrical lines.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Counselors would build entire worlds movie sets minus the movie,
to perform skits and dances for their color War teams
throughout the week. The theme might be Outer Space, under
the Sea, or King Kong. They'd craft buildings, fountains, and murals.
One year they even brought in live animals as part
(26:04):
of their set. It was like a mini Disney World
just for Shane.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
He could help facilitate sheer magic into being. He actively
engaged in the creative side and programming side that helped
counselors create experiences that would be life, you know, lifetime
memories for campers.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Camp was making good on the promise of a magical summer,
but behind the scenes it was a nightmare for David Attenburg. Meanwhile,
at Camp Shane, David still had his hands full with
his mother. Yeah, that was still going on. To be clear,
(26:51):
Selma hadn't owned Camp Shane for more than a decade.
At this point, but her pettiness was unmatched. From her
house across the street. She would call the cops if
staff used the PA system after nine pm on family
visiting day. If parents parked in the street illegally, she
would have their cars toaed. It was impossible for counselors
(27:13):
to ignore the tension. Their family squabbles were on full display,
but there were even bigger issues percolating to the surface.
By two thousand and four, enrollment had grown to its
highest ever, and it put a serious strain on the
staff and infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Here's Merrill again.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
We were busting at the seams. At that point. It
was like five hundred and seventy five kids. We had
over three hundred staff. It was a lot.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
It wasn't just the campers that felt these growing pains.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Simon and his wife lived in like an apartment on
the side of a building. He had to move out
of those and those had to become bunks. We added
bunk bed into places where they could fit one more.
I think we had to bring in trailers to make bunks,
(28:07):
and we couldn't even fit into the cafeteria. The whole
camp was too big.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
But there was still an influx of cash, and that
was a good thing for David's business. To be fair,
he wasn't the only one in the weight loss business
making millions. Here's culture journalist Yvet Dion again.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
In the society that we live in, diet culture is
connected inherently to companies that profit from telling us that
things are wrong with our bodies. And so the dieting
industry is a billion dollar industry, meaning that these corporations
earn billions of dollars telling us that our bodies are
(28:50):
not good enough as they are. And so if you
go to this class, or if you take this pill,
or if you wear this waist trainer, you get to
have this ideal and I.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Put that in quotation marks body type.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
And so we become ensnared in the system that's selling
us our insecurities and then telling us they had the
solution to fix the insecurity that they're telling us.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
That we have.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
David was certainly making money by targeting children's in securities,
but he was not always forthcoming about that money, and
that got him into trouble. One day in the summer
of two thousand two, men in suits arrived at Campshane.
They stood out among the basketball shorts and baggy T
(29:39):
shirts that were ubiquitous at camp.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
At first, David didn't think much of it.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Occasionally, lawyers or caseworkers would show up to handle support
issues with specific campers. Turns out this time they wanted
to speak with David. They were representatives from the IRS,
and it wasn't good. Remember, this was what's the most
popular Shane had ever been, and a nine week session
(30:04):
cost a whopping sixty four hundred dollars. David was easily
raking in two million a summer. That's a lot of
money to be pulling in when the Feds are watching you,
and you best believe they were watching. In fact, the
IRS had an investigation underway. They had reason to believe
David wasn't reporting all of his taxable income. Still dealing
(30:29):
with the constant feuding with his mother, David was convinced
Selma had tipped them off. This wouldn't have been the
first time Selma tried to sabotage her son. As the
former owner, Selma had more than enough inside knowledge to
sell David out. In September two thousand and four, the
IRS finished their investigation. They'd uncovered that David had been
(30:51):
renting out the campgrounds to a church group and a
school group in the off season, and he had failed
to report more than one hundred thousand dollars in income.
Soon after, he pled guilty to tax evasion and faced
up to fourteen months in prison. That left everybody at
Shane with questions. With David gone, who would oversee camp,
(31:14):
who would manage the business? More importantly, would camp be
shut down? Of course, David didn't end up in prison,
not with our justice system. The judge who took his
case believed Camp Shane to be a noble project. In
his ruling, he said, though there is no question that
(31:35):
the offense is a serious one, given what I have
come to learn about mister Ettenburgh's circumstances and his life
of work, it would be a grave injustice and a
shame if anything were done that would have a serious
detrimental impact on Camp Shane. The judge gave David four
years of probation and four hundred hours of community service.
(31:57):
He also made David pay nearly sixty thousand dollars in
restitution and fees, and ordered him to give fifty scholarships
to underprivileged kids over the.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Next four years.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
As a result of the conviction, the American Camp Association
or ACA, removed Camp Shane's accreditation. This meant it no
longer met the ACA's guidelines for safety, health, program quality,
and management practices. Shane could still operate shore, but without
that gold star Camp Shane could lose the confidence of
(32:31):
customers and the media that trusted the camp to uphold
certain standards of care and safety. Side note, this wasn't
the first time Shane had lost ACA accreditation. In two
thousand and one, it was temporarily revoked for poor reviews
and inspection results yikes. Throughout the investigation, David basically had
(32:54):
free legal counsel. His wife, Suppora, a New York Bar
approved attorney rep, presented him. When the end of David's
probation was coming up. Zuppora wrote a letter requesting that
David be released from probation early. They wanted their ACA
accreditation back for the upcoming summer. As the camp owner,
(33:15):
David needed to be off probation so that the ACA
could come to an inspection. According to Zappora's letter, which
was written to the judge, the ACA withdrawal had far
reaching consequences, one being that quote media that have been
interested in doing programs and stories on the camp have
backed away the letter worked. By now it was the
(33:39):
mid two thousands, David was off the hook and went
straight back to business. Camp Shane began expanding beyond Ferndale,
New York. In two thousand and seven, they started opening
satellite camps. Small resort style versions of Camp Shane started
popping up across the country. California, Georgia, and Wisconsin were
(33:59):
just a f These camps were very different from Ferndale.
Instead of being in cabins surrounded by lush green woods,
campers were usually on college campuses and dorms that were
rented for the summer by Shane. This was one way
for David to grow his empire without taking on too
many extra costs. Back at the main camp in Ferndale, though,
(34:22):
the money wasn't exactly trickling down. Some new cabins were built,
but equipment was breaking down.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Things would not be repaired for a very very long time,
and not because Simon wasn't capable or didn't have it
on his docket to do it. Was the stringency of
the way the budget would be. Day would just stretch it.
He would do without, so there were any number of
places instruments on camp that sometimes when they broke, they
were done. Go carts and Doom Buggi's is the most notorious,
(34:50):
where they'd be running in fully operational at the start
of the summer. A man, you get to anything that
costs more than like twenty five bucks to fix or
replace and Simon totally bagshu, but it's not getting replaced.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
These refusals to make seemingly small fixes were frustrating for
Karl and other counselors, and they were starting to create
tension between the staff and David.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
All these things are happening that the answers are we
need more investment in the camp, you know what I mean,
Like we could win this, Like we can get Dave
to convert and open up the pocketbook. He's being stubborn
in whatever because it's his job to be conservative on
the money and blah.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
By two thousand and seven, there was what Karl described
as a war behind the scenes between David and the staff.
He said that David didn't want to spend money while
the counselors advocated for some reinvestment in the camp.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
A complete and critical breakdown in the core cultural factors
of the camp. You always have this core returning staff.
What started to happen in the nineties and then fully
exploded in my time was you also had the camp
or counselor phenomenon where you could have started as a
as a camper and then became a councerort. So like
by the late nineties and into the two thousands, you
(36:04):
saw people who had already put in six years as
a camper became a counselor. And what they did is
that it reinforced what was already a fraternal, surroyal sort
of sense of the camp. You took ownership of the traditions,
you really believed in them. So as staff investment cheaped
out and you started to lose.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That, the passion that kept those lifers coming back year
after year started waning. As their pay didn't reflect the time,
sweat and energy they'd put into Shane, especially for as
long as many of them had been there.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Some counselors who were multiple year concerts were given the
same static pay. Well that's bullshit, and people are going
to going to go somewhere. You know.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Longtime staff stopped returning in bigger numbers and the new staff.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
Well, they were barely there for the campers, and they're
more interested in hitting the bar.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
And the counselors who were sticking around and trying to
be there for the kids found themselves taking on more
and more specialized and haphazard responsibilities. Merril Winter, who was
still working as a group leader in two thousand and eight,
remembers once when the nurse took a day off, the
(37:17):
sub never showed up, so it was somehow Meryll's job
to fill in.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I remember we were giving out the meds and they
were some heavy duty meds. All the kids, thank god,
got the right meds and everything was great, But it
shouldn't have been me that was giving them out. That
was a scary one.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Counselors were also now working with a new demographic of
camper who needed even more medical attention. To Merrill, it
seems like David was willing to let anyone in just
to make a few more dollars, even if they were
kids who camp Shane couldn't properly and responsibly take on.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Kids would come straight from rehab facilities, not a lot,
but it happened, kids would be mentally unstable. They would
come on meds that we couldn't get because they were
from another country. Certain things like that, where you know,
(38:17):
he wouldn't have to deal with it. We would have
to deal with it, and we would have to find
a way to make life nice and safe.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
But making sure the counselors felt equipped to handle the
needs of their campers wasn't David's concern.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
He was happy with bodies in camp, whether they'd be
kids or counselors. You know, as long as the counselors
were a body that was there and he met the
ratio of how many staff to kids, he was happy.
Didn't matter if they were doing things that were unethical
(38:56):
or dangerous. And I don't mean he meant to put
the kids at harm. He was just, you know, if
it's let me just slide by the summer and we
could start fresh next summer, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
In two thousand and eight, Carl didn't feel that Camp
Shane was equipped to care for campers with specialized medical needs.
Although they advertised having psychology professionals, the people hired didn't
always meet the required qualifications. They were often in training
or in the process of getting their degrees.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
So there were kids who were living with mental challenges
and were on the spectrum who should not come to
a place that doesn't have the medical and clinical trainee
to monitor them for twenty four hours or twelve hours
of time. Kids who could not necessarily be legitimately autonomously
living individuals. And that's what that was, like the final
(39:57):
pressure breaker on Champchine.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Maybe if camp had the qualified medical professionals that it
claimed to have, it's possible they could have properly cared
for these kids, but that wasn't the case.
Speaker 6 (40:11):
Two thousand and eight was the place where, like we
were still trying to run it as the feel good,
happy time, but there were so many kids who had
behavioral disorders. Counsel didn't give a shit campers who were
super toxic that you were putting out fires every single
day as opposed to putting joy in people's hearts. And
so that was the real sort of like degrading of everything.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Carl started to realize that Selma's safe haven, the one
for kids growing up in an anti fat society, was
beginning to slip away in.
Speaker 6 (40:46):
The least model words possible. You had skinny kids coming
who shouldn't be there, who you're probably generating you know,
disordered thinking and unhealthy relationships to food. By sending them
to a fat camp and they're just the kid with
the biggest waste size in their social group at home.
It putrefied the social environment because now you had skinny
kids back in fields with obese kids and heavyweight kids.
(41:09):
And it's high school, right, so the skinnier girls got
all the attention. It threw everything off.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
For someone who'd poured his heart and soul into camp,
this breakdown really affected Carl.
Speaker 6 (41:24):
I had a really sad moment happened where I kind
of knew it wasn't going to come back at the
closing night of that summer where I was listening to
a counselor, a first year counselor excitedly talk about man
next year, and I realized, like, I have no excitement
for next year. And that was the first time I
never had ever felt that, And it was like feeling
(41:45):
a trapdoor open in the bottom of your soul, like
you know the way everyone felt when bingbong, like faded
away in the middle of inside out by.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
You made it.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
No save Riley, take her to the mood for me.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Okay, Carl returned one last time but it was more
out of obligation than excitement, and he certainly didn't restructure
his whole summer around camp like he used to. Here's
how Carl remembers that final summer.
Speaker 6 (42:27):
In two thousand and nine. I came to help the
camp halfway through the summer. I could only do half
a summer, and I came as maintenance and punched in.
But I also did a huge amount of work as
a counselor basically as it a de facto like assistant
head counselor. Well, at the end of the summer, I
was waiting for my punch and page when I clocked
(42:49):
in and clocked out every day in the hour, and
Dave was like, well, I thought you did this for free.
Classic I had watched and tried to advocate for counselors
who felt they were underpaid. Okay, you know, but hey, Dave,
come on, let's talk about this and and we get
heated privately right Well, now, only I had this conversation
with Dave about justifying somebody's pay and he's looking at
(43:11):
me despite an email thread that we had me and
Simon had about discussing the rate my hourly rate and
when I'm be coming in it, and Dave just stight
up said, well, I guess that's a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Shirley Simon, who always had his staff's back, who was
rumored to bleed orange, and whom Carl idolized, would step
in and save the day.
Speaker 6 (43:35):
And I'm having this argument with him. Well, Simon's sitting
right next to him. So I looked at Simon, said, bro, like,
you have the emails right there on your computer. And
then Simon stops, looks at Dave, then looks back at me.
You know, it makes me, you know, I'm trying to cry,
it like, and he's like, I think we've had a mistake.
(44:00):
And Simon freaking sent me up the river too, like
he didn't. If Simon had put his foot down, I
should have gotten the full pay. But he just like, oh,
I guess it was a misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Carl was on his own.
Speaker 6 (44:18):
So then Dave gets to look at me and be like, oh, well,
that's not my fault, because whatever you and Simon talked about,
I think the pay I would have been owed was
something above eleven hundred bucks. I walked down that room
feeling like a prostitute because he gave me like three
hundred bucks cash from like a petty envelope. I gotta
tell you, I never saw that coming. So that was brutal.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Here was Carl, former star camper and near celebrity counselor
who recruited, marketed, and wholeheartedly believed in the Camp Shane mission,
on the receiving end of David's penny pinching tendencies. Camp
had turned into something he no longer recognized.
Speaker 6 (44:56):
The politics, all the bullshit that we had. Some of
us had thought it was fiscal concernancy. It came out
as these are dishonorable decisions, not miserly decisions, but dishonorable ones.
And the curtain was down. Now the bad things that
were happening weren't happening because of like the innocence of
tough financial decisions. Bad things were happening because Dave. A
(45:21):
lot of us finally were realizing, like, this is ethically
not a good person.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Next time on Camp Shame, we just were like, what
do we do?
Speaker 10 (45:33):
It is our job to promote a camp now that
is essentially condoning behavior that we don't agree with, that
is actually really fucked up behavior, Like I just I
can't be here anymore I.
Speaker 7 (45:43):
Have to go.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
We reached out to Simon Greenwood, David Attenburg and his
wife Supporta Janowski for comment. At the time of this recording,
we have not received a reply. Camp Shame is a
production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host Kelsey Snelling. Camp
Shame is produced by Brittany Martinez, Taylor Williamson, Sarah Schlead,
Lucy Jones.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
And Aliah Yates Grau.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Our editor is Courtney Hameister, with additional editorial support from
Lindsay Cradowell and Grace Lynch. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan,
Emily Rutter and me Kelsey Snelling for iHeartMedia. Our executive
producer is Christina Everett. Fact checking done by Madeline Gore,
Lucy Jones, Paloma Moreno, Jimenez, Lauren Williams, and Fiona Pastana.
(46:34):
Our theme music is produced by Sean Patel. Listen and
subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at camp Shame.
That's with an M. If you or anyone you know
went to Camp Shane, reach out with your camp stories.
Speaker 9 (47:00):
Yeah,
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