GROW (Young Women Girls Camp Theme)
Looking for a meaningful LDS girls camp theme? Use this GROW theme complete with flower groups, spiritual activities, fun crafts, and printables!
When I was called to be the camp director (and later the Young Women president), I knew I wanted our girls to feel ownership of their camp experience.
So I turned to our amazing YCLs to help plan the theme—and they totally delivered.
They came up with the theme GROW, and from there, we created a camp filled with beautiful symbolism, thoughtful spiritual moments, and plenty of fun.
Whether you’re a first-time camp leader or just looking for a fresh theme, I’m sharing everything we did—from flower-themed shirts and door decor to our daily schedule, favorite meals, and printable designs you can use too!
Girls Camp Theme
During our first planning meeting, we threw around lots of different theme ideas like the Youth theme for the year or a scripture, but the girls really wanted camp to focus on the word GROW.
From there, we divided the YCL’s into 4 groups and they each came up with a flower and a word that matched with the letter we gave them.
- G was for Generous and had a sunflower.
- R was for Rare and had a magnolia.
- O was for Optimistic and had a periwinkle.
- W was for Wise and had a hydrangea.
They also picked a color for their groups and that played into the shirts that we designed for camp! Each of the 4 groups got a shirt with a certain color flower and the leaders had purple!
I got the shirts from Hobby Lobby and then we printed the logos using a Cricut and ironed them on.
Girls Camp Decorations
Purple, Blue, Orange Flowers | Yellow Sunflowers | Red Flowers
The decor was really fun and simple! I got paper flowers in the colors for each groups and had the girls decorate their doors when we first got to the house. (We went to an AirBNB in St. George so we had the ability to decorate doors, but you could still pull this off with tents!)
Girls Camp Activities
Notebooks | Yellow Flower Stickers | Blue Flower Stickers | Orange Flower Stickers | Magnolia Stickers | Bracelet Chain | Charms | Glow Sticks
We had lots of fun activities planned for the girls!
For our camp kickoff activity we gave the girls flower leis and introduced our theme. We also painted rocks to take on our glow stick hike and practiced pickle ball. We also had an activity before camp where we gave the girls nice notebooks and gave them stickers and markers to decorate.
Once we got to camp, these are the activities we did:
- Memory books – we brought polaroid cameras and pens so the girls could take pictures at camp and add them to the books they made before we left.
- Pickle ball tournament
- Swimming
- Charm bracelets
- Writing post cards home
- Glow stick hike – We took the rocks we painted at camp kickoff and hiked the Aspiration Trail in St. George. We also took glow sticks for the girls that they used along the way.
Our spiritual activities were visiting the Red Cliffs temple on our way down to St. George, daily devotionals, a large butcher paper where the girls could write how they were seeing the hand of God, and a testimony meeting.
Girls Camp Schedule
Our schedule looked like this most days:
- Breakfast
- Morning devotional
- Morning activity
- Swimming
- Lunch
- Afternoon craft
- Dinner
- Devotional
- Lights out
You can grab the template I used for the schedule below!
Girls Camp Food
The YCL’s planned all of the food! We asked them their favorite meals and snacks and then narrowed it down to what would be the easiest to prepare. Here is what we ate:
Thursday
- Dinner – Cafe Rio Bowls (we made the chicken beforehand and cooked the rice at the house to save on prep time)
Friday
- Breakfast – French toast, bagels, fruit, yogurt, granola
- Lunch – Chick-fil-a nuggest, fries, fruit
- Dinner – Homemade pizza, salad
Saturday
- Breakfast – Bagels, fruit, yogurt, granola
- Lunch – Sandwiches, chips
Snacks
- Gushers
- Goldfish
- Juice boxes
- Granola bars
- Wheat Thins
Each of the groups were assigned a meal to prep, serve, and clean up. I think all of the meals went great except the pizzas took forever to cook! If we did it again, I would do English muffin pizzas instead of pizzas with dough.
Follow-Up Lesson
The Sunday after camp, I gave a lesson with one of the counselors in the YW presidency. We talked about what we felt and learned at camp. The theme of the lesson was, “Be your own kind of beautiful.”
We talked about growth, uniqueness, and how everyone can be different and that’s beautiful. We printed out the photo above and gave it to the girls along with a single rose.
It was a beautiful lesson and was probably one of my favorite parts about girls camp!
Tips and Tricks
Here are a few tips and tricks I learned from this girls camp and from being the camp director:
- Putting the girls in charge of planning camp and coming up with a theme was the best thing we could’ve done! It gave them ownership of the camp and most of them said it was the best one they’d been to!
- I priced out all of the food and meals before we left to make sure we stayed in budget. That being said, we bought WAY too much food and came home with a ton that we had to divvy up.
- For secret sisters, I put a list of all of the girls in ChatGPT and gave it the prompt “Here is a list of names. Please assign another name to them from the list.” It made secret sisters random and easy!
- To pay for camp, the girls did a cookie dough fundraiser that was a big success!
GROW Girls Camp Printables
If you’d like to get copies of all of the printables I used for our GROW girls camp (including the flower shirt logos), just click on the button below!
Your Turn
Are you the camp director or YW president in your ward? Let us know if you use this camp theme in the comments below!
