We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ryan Scarfile Lisa Andes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ryan Scarfile below.
Ryan Scarfile, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Go Crazy Camps came about almost accidently. Ryan Scarfile, a PE teacher at Timonium Elementary School, had worked camps since his early teenage years. Summer camps provided a good summer job and revenue. He had previously worked with another PE teacher at a different camp when they started their own camp. Ryan decided to leave the camp he was previously working at and join this new camp but by February of 2019 they both realized the camp was not taking off as quickly as expected and Ryan was left without a summer job. Until he decided to start his own camp at Timonium Elementary School where he currently worked. He had been a teacher there for now 3 years and thought a sports-style summer camp would be a fun way and draw some of his current students to attend.
Ryan wanted to have another adult work the camp with him and asked if Lisa Andes, a 3rd grade classroom teachers would join him. The plan was to work 3 weeks and each week have the sports camp geared to a different age group of campers. Ryan and Lisa ran the camp through the local Lutherville and Timonium Parks and Recs Department. The first year of camp in 2019 they had about 60 total campers over their 3 weeks.
Word of mouth spread of the new camp and many families showed interest going into the 2020 year but COVID became a very apparent road block. We jumped through many hurdles and red tape to get camp running for the 2020 season and ran more of a Day Camp style with campers going to different parts of camp such as art, sports and STEM style stations. We saw just how much COVID impacted our students as the 2020 school year was ending and cut short. Most importantly their social and emotional well-being along with their ability to socialize with others drove us to get camp to run that summer. Go Crazy Camps was one of the only summer camps to run for 2020 and we were proud to do it safely for all of our campers and camp families.
As we continued to grow through the years, we added other camps to our program. We brought back Sports Camp while keeping a Day Camp style camp for those that enjoyed it. We also added an Art Camp, Drama Camp, Tots camp for Pre-K and future K, as well as a STEM camp and Primary Camp over the next 4 years.
By the end of 2023 we had nearly 500 different campers attending Go Crazy Camps across 4 weeks of camp in July. The local Recs and Parks program could not keep up with how much our camp had expanded and we decided to become our own LLC. In 2024 Go Crazy Camps gained their LLC and ran their first summer as an independent business with over 700 campers across 4 weeks of camp. This came with many challenges and hurdles of its own as we became business owners and navigated insurance, building facility fees, and a multitude of other state mandated requirements to run a camp within the state of Maryland; however, we are so excited we did as it provided us even more autonomy as we continue to expand.
As we gear up for Summer 2025 we look forward to hosting even more campers as we expand to a 5 week summer and continue to offer 7 different style camps over 2 different locations with all different types of campers in mind, Go Crazy Camps has always been a passion project for us. We both work at Timonium Elementary School still and we pour our hearts into the camp as it offers such a wonderful opportunity to support the children of our Timonium Community as well as now surrounding communities an opportunity to learn, grow, and socialize in a safe and fun environment at camp!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Go Crazy Camps was initially Ryan’s idea but like every good super hero duo, it became a team effort. We compliment each other very well in how we work and our vision is always aligned. Our mission has always been to create a camp that is fun, safe, and provides numerous opportunities for all kids while keeping it economically friendly for the parents that have to pay for it.
Ryan has been working in various camps around the state of Maryland since he was 15 ranging from day camps, travel camps, and over night camps. When Go Crazy Camps was envisioned and brought to life, the background from those different camps impacted how Go Crazy Camps was designed and built. Lisa was the perfect compliment to get Go Crazy Camps up and running. Lisa is extremely organized, well thought out in her actions, and can run a mean schedule and excel document. Ryan has always been the big idea guy but with Lisa, this camp wouldn’t run nearly as smoothly.
As Go Crazy Camps expanded, so did the teachers that worked in it. Go Crazy Camps is 100% staffed by 10 month Maryland educators and we are proud to use the expertise and experience of other great educators to make Go Crazy Camps even better!
Although Go Crazy Camps has grown very quickly in our 6 years from 60 campers our first year to over 700 different campers in our 6th, we try and grow systematically. Many times we let the puzzle pieces fall into place and we have found that this is the best way to operate our business. Let the incredible educators around us support our camp with their wealth of knowledge and put people in position to do what they love in different ways and avenues at camp.
As for our brand we believe that as long as we stick to our mission, which is: providing an amazing camp at an affordable price, we believe that it would continue to market itself and allow us to grow organically. It has been a fun ride and we cannot wait to see how Go Crazy Camps continues to grow and impact the communities around us!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Absolutely! This comes from our second year of operating Go Crazy Camps and we were still operating under the local parks and recs department. We had our first successful year of camp in 2019 and we were going into 2020. The word of Go Crazy Camps had spread and many local families were interested in registering for camp. We opened camp registration for 2020 on January 1st and many of our spots were filled by March 2020. Unfortunately the pandemic put a major road block in our way. Lisa and Ryan closed out the school year by teaching virtually. We saw the negative impact on our students in their social and emotional well-being. We battled adversity and jumped through many hoops to get camp to operate for the summer of 2020.
We had to wait until the end of May 2020 to finally get the green light on camp which started the first week of July. It created quite the time crunch for us to hire, staff, and prepare our camp to operate under both Maryland Camp standards while also adhering to ever changing Maryland Health Guidelines.
The summer 2020 was a huge success and we were able to operate fully while having no COVID outbreaks during camp. During the last day of camp for 2020 we had two 5th grade girls crying tears of joy and sadness. We saw this release of emotion as they were able to get closure to their time at Timonium Elementary School. They didn’t get to “graduate”. They didn’t get to say goodbye to their friends. They didn’t get time to prepare for Middle School. Go Crazy Camps was able to provide them some semblance of an ending to their time at Elementary School. That really impacted us and brought joy to our hearts. We were so glad we got to offer those campers a safe place and provide them that opportunity. Both girls in the summer of 2024 were paid counselors for us at Go Crazy Camps, one in our Drama Camp and the other in our Day Camp.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
At Go Crazy Camps we invested in a Social Media Manager very early on. We pulled all of our marketing budget, which starting out was very little, and invested in a local photographer, the wonderful Anne Casey Photography. If you need any type of photography needs, I cannot suggest her enough (except the month of July Mondays-Fridays because she’s working at Go Crazy Camps). We wanted to invest in the parents as much as the campers. We wanted to show parents the fun their kids were having at camp. This allowed for our camp to spread more organically, something we have always tried to do. It is really easy to share a picture of something fun your kid is doing at camp to a co-worker, a friend, or a family member. We never put the pictures behind a pay wall and shared out daily pictures with descriptions of what the kids were doing in the various camps and groups. This allowed parents to say “Hey, I saw you were doing _____ at camp, tell me more”. This allowed parents to share the social media posts, screen shot and text them out and essentially allow the parents market for us while allowing them to see the fun their kids were having at camp.
As long as we run a great camp, the parents would spread the news for us and market for us. I never intended this to be our main marketing strategy, I initially just wanted to make sure parents knew that their kids were having a blast a camp and to see all the awesome things they were doing, but as I look back on it, its allowed the parents to see that their kids are safe and having fun, while also keeping daily feedback for parents. Most of the time just being genuine is the best way to foster brand loyalty and keeping customer retention. You’ll never make everyone happy, but stick to your core values and many times things take care of themselves, just like with us at Go Crazy Camps.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gocrazycamps.com
- Instagram: @gocrazycamps
- Facebook: @GoCrazyCamps
Image Credits
Anne Casey Photography