Inspiring Conversations with Ryan Scarfile, Lisa Sauerwald of Go Crazy Camps

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Scarfile, Lisa Sauerwald

Hi Ryan Scarfile, Lisa Sauerwald, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Go Crazy Camps started in 2019 as a small Sports Camp. Ryan Scarfile the PE teacher at Timonium Elementary School (co-owner) has years of experience working at various camps around the state of Maryland approached Lisa Sauerwald (co-owner) a 4th grade teacher at Timonium Elementary School about starting a small 3 week sports camp during the summer. We worked together and held our camp through the local recs and parks department, Lutherville Timonium Recreation Council (LTRC). Our first year of camp over our 3 weeks we had about 60 total campers. The next year was 2020 and COVID happened yet we were one of the few camps to open our doors to its campers. Each year we continued to grow both in size, but also different types of camps we offered. We began to offer an Art Camp, which to this day is one of our best selling camps, a STEM camp, Drama Camp and many more! We really try to provide a type of camp that meets the desires of all kids! At the end of summer 2023 we began to realize that our camp was outgrowing LTRC and we decided it was time to become our own small business and LLC. It was a very humbling but fun experience. In 2024 we were proud to host over 700 campers in our 4 weeks of camp across 7 different style camps in 2 different locations while also providing service learning opportunities for local middle schoolers and job opportunities for young adults and teachers during the summer.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has certainly not been a smooth road, like all businesses and new adventures you have to learn along the way. We were really challenged our second year, in the summer of 2020 when COVID hit. We both felt strongly that the kids needed camp. We both taught virtually and saw how many kids were impacted socially and emotionally. We spent hours jumping through the necessary precautions to have camp get the green light. Other challenges that we have experienced is finding out Timonium ES was being used for elections last minute, losing the building for multiple days to severe storms and loss of power days before our first year drama camp performance, and almost having to shut down in 2022 because of COIVD! It has not been easy, but in all of the challenges we keep the campers at the forefront and know that our camp is benefiting so many young children that would otherwise not receive this opportunity. Every year we have struggled to keep up with demand, which admittedly is a great problem to have. We always have campers on our waitlist, but we want everyone to be able to come to camp. Finding ways to grow sustainably while keeping camp groups smaller than typical class sizes has been a struggle over the years. In 2023 when we left LTRC and became our own business, that brought in so many other challenges like insurance, payroll, taxes, facility rental costs and more! However, it brought autonomy and allowed us to better meet the needs of our staff and campers which was worth the growing pains.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Go Crazy Camps?
At Go Crazy Camps we really pride ourselves on being the best camp, yet least expensive! Lisa and I are teachers, that staff our camp with teachers and we strive to ensure that we make our camp affordable to all families! We aren’t trying to become millionaires from camp, we want to make sure we give back to this community and offer an awesome summer experience that kids deserve at a fraction of the price compared to these other large summer camps that charge seemingly outrageous amounts of money.

We are proud that we employee 100% 10 month educators from around the state of Maryland as our Directors and Program Directors. Additionally in 2024 we hired 30+ young adults as counselors which provided them valuable work experience. Also, we provided service learning opportunities for local middle schoolers as Counselor’s in Training.

We offered 7 different camps in 2024: Sports, Drama, STEM, Day, Primary, TOTs, and Art camp. We want every kid to find something that they love to do and want to Go Crazy with us at camp. We also welcome campers with disabilities and have made numerous accommodations for campers to make camp accessible to as many kids as possible.

We feel as though our staff is what sets us apart from all other camps! Our camp is run 100% by teachers and we give 100% for the campers that walk into our doors. I don’t believe another camp of our size can say that and I truly believe our staff is what sets us apart and makes our camp the best!

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
We really do look at camp at 1 year at a time. 10 months of the year we are fully committed to being the best teachers we can be; however, we hope Go Crazy continues to grow to meet the campers and parents needs. At the end of every summer we take parent input and try to accommodate their requests. We know that we have limitations to what we can do running our camp within a Baltimore County Public School; however, we do our best to meet the needs and requests of the parents and campers. Our Day Camp was created because campers asked to do less sports and more games. We added before and after care because parents requested longer camp hours to meet their working hours along with many more.

We do discuss big picture ideas from time to time, like expanding our camp to other BCPS schools, doing a before and after care program during the school year and other things. In the next 5-10 years this might happen but we aren’t too worried. We try to grow organically and systematically and meet the needs when they approach us. We really do run this business to benefit the parents and kids and we try to keep them as the top priority!

Pricing:

• 330$ 5 day camp no before and after care
• 412.50$ 5 day camp with before and after care

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gocrazycamps.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gocrazycamp/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoCrazyCamps/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=wp6KgYM1g6c&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gocrazycamps.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY