“Our group of counselors became a tight group of friends,” described junior JoJo Baldus. “Every Friday we [would] go to Dairy Queen after all the campers had left and we’d have cookies and stuff to celebrate all the camper’s success in the camp and then we’d all carpool to DQ and chill and laugh and eat. Sometimes we hung out afterwards which was a lot of fun kind of even though there were people in college and highschool, we all had fun together.”
Baldus works as a camp counselor at the Loppet Adventure Camp. “It’s a lot of fun, it’s tiring though,” he said. “It’s long days in the sun, it’s with little kids. [It] can be a challenge.”

“A big part of the Loppet Foundation is that it’s based in North Minneapolis out of [Theodore Wirth Park] so it’s kind of drawing kids who might not otherwise have the opportunity to do such activities and get into nordic skiing and things like that,” Baldus explained. “They really outreach to different schools and organizations to get them there.”

“They [Loppet Adventure Camp] had open jobs and encouraged for people our age or a little older,” Baldus explained. To prep for this job, Baldus went through trainings, a safety course and a “classic concussion training online”. He has been working there since last summer.

Baldus explained that he works with a group of 10 or so kids with another counselor. He works alongside fellow Nordic Skiing teammate Tyler Thomegreen, a senior at South.
Both boys heard about the job through coaches and former coaches of the South High Nordic Skiing team. “One of our former coaches at South was talking about it, recommending it to people, so I emailed her and she helped me get the job,”  Thomegreen explained of his process.

Thomegreen says his favorite part about working at the Loppet Adventure Camp is being outside all summer. “It’s all just games and activities all day pretty much. We go mountain biking, canoeing, play frisbee, swimming, [and] roller skiing,”  Thomegreen said. Baldus added that there is a trail run at the Eloise Butler Flower garden that the campers and counselors venture to once in awhile.

“It’s divided into 50 minute chunks and theres a bunch of activities that we just rotate through.” Baldus explained. The activities are to get kids outside and to get exercise.“It’s a lot of fun,” Thomegreen said.

Baldus says his favorite activity would be paddling. “One of my groups loves to flip the canoe, so they just go out and flip the canoe. The canoe [instructor] would flip out,” he smiled.

Baldus will continue working there part time this summer, for about a month and a half. Thomegreen will be working there for 7 weeks. Baldus is eager to start working. “ It’s very enjoyable and things I love to do,” he said.