Ekone Leadership Program
Please help us keep this calendar up to date! If this activity is sold out, canceled, or otherwise needs alteration, email mindy@kidsoutandabout.com so we can update it immediately. If you have a question about the activity itself, please contact the organization administrator listed below.
June 29-July 4, 2026
Ages 14-18
Base Tuition $900; Restoration Rate $1200 (scholarships available)
Session Size: 12 campers
IMPORTANT: This program is a prerequisite to becoming an Ekone intern. Want to work here someday? Or somewhere like it? Sign up for this camp!
This camp is specifically designed for those Ekone teens who are interested in gaining the necessary leadership and practical skills needed to intern and/or work at Ekone someday, or who just generally want to gain a bunch of practical, hands-on skills that could help you in lots of career paths.
Want to be a camp staff intern, or a kitchen/garden or ranch intern at Ekone? This program will teach you a literal 10,000 important things, and get you working with your hands and body, developing situational awareness and going all-in on the dusty dirty business of life on a working ranch and summer camp, while also developing leadership skills and tools for building emotional maturity. We’ll be putting safety first and embracing danger, doing something on the way to doing something, and finding the fun in everything as we explore the many aspects of camp and ranch life at Ekone. This camp is also just great for any teens interested in gaining these types of practical skills, even if you don't want to work here ;)
At the beginning of the week, leadership participants will be assigned to the various Ekone staffing positions to get training or shadow the staff in each department, including working as camp staff with the Young Rider campers, working in the Yummy Tummy Cafe camp kitchen, and working in with our facilities staff in the shop or around the Ekone infrastructure. By the end of the week, participants will get to choose which of these areas they'd like to spend more time in.
Just like ranch life, this program will be driven by what most needs doing at the time. Our focus will be on making, fixing, and tending the many aspects of ranch life, while we also tend to our camp community and learn more about how to effectively support each other and gain the support we each need to be compassionate leaders in the varied areas of our lives.
Some potential skill-building projects include: learning safe use of power tools, taking down old barbed wire fence with fencing tools and making a giant Barbed Wire Ball, earthen plaster work, working with tile, basic plumbing and electrical skills, laying waste to bitterbrush (a very satisfying and useful kind of destruction!). Ranch life also involves caring for the ranch animals and plants, so we may also help stack hay in the barn, tend to the chickens and pigs, learn basic veterinary skills, harvest and work in the Ekone garden, and depending on interest, assist with processing chickens for eating.
And everyone, everyone will learn the fine art of running a kitchen clean-up crew and how to teach youngsters to wash dishes.
At the end of the week, each participant will receive a personalized letter of recommendation, highlighting their individual strengths, to be used for job-hunting, college applications, or other leadership opportunities.
*Times, dates, and prices of any activity posted to our calendars are subject to change. Please be sure to click through directly to the organization’s website to verify.