ymca camp elphinstone - Kitchen General Helper The Y (YMCA) Employee Review

3.0
16 May 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

in my opinion the facilities are very modern and good and clean. there is wifi and cell service--even in your cabin (there was a router inside my cabin). there are laundry facilities, multiple washing and drying machines, but you have to bring your own detergent. there is a snack bar for you to store food (don't store food in your cabin because there are mice, at least there were in mine) and also where there are some snacks for staff to eat such as leftovers from the meals or cereal or instant noodles etc. there is a place called ad hall which has a tv, a bunch of couches, a pool table, a fireplace and a bunch of cool vhs tapes so you can hook up your laptop to the tv and watch movies and hang out ie. a cool rustic place to be hanging out with other staff. you get a nice view of the mountains and the water. you can definitely take the bus into town, the bus service (bctransit) is good, maybe a bus every 1 or 2 hours (get a schedule or search it up), it's $2 and you can take the bus to sechelt, gibsons, etc on your days off the people are definitely very nice, lots of people were kind and friendly to me. it's definitely quite a social setting, group living, less privacy because of the nature of group living. as for working in the kitchen the teammates are great, multicultural team too, and the boss this year is chill. i felt like i didn't have much to do sometimes but that's supposedly only because it's not summer yet--in summer they say it gets very busy, but not so much in april and may, which is when you can focus on learning and getting ready for the summer i guess

Cons

the hiring process was not so great. i was in contact with this one hr person who would take many days to respond to emails and i had a lot of questions, i didn't even know when i was supposed to get there, so it was confusing. so maybe write all your questions out at once

Explore other reviews about The Y (YMCA)

5.0
2 July 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There was staff and leadership

Cons

To much workload for no pay

3.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The team members/ coworkers and administrator (team lead) that you work with on a day-to-day basis are the ones who will make or break the experience. Obviously working with children, one must have patience, be flexible, creative - there are some days that test all of those skills! lol! But when you have a great teaching team to work with, your program can run like a well-oiled machine. I loved the time I had working with this program!

Cons

The pay is very low, I do understand with the YMCA being a non-profit, but at the same time when a position is responsible for young children, the pay should be higher than a fast-food chain, to attract and keep higher caliber staffing. - If you already work at a school, it's not a bad gig to make some extra money for coming in a few hours early or a few late. But if you are driving more than 5min, to work 2-3 hours for a ridiculously low rate I would say pass. I was not doing this for the money - I truly loved my coworkers and the kids that attended my school. Unfortunately, some of the other cons are: poor communication (very poor), lack of SOP's when it comes to how teachers should be handling situations for their own personal safety and unrealistic expectations (of us to do marketing, surveys collecting demographics, and pushing for financial donations). The last few things listed is what ended up driving me to resign.

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