For Elizabeth Weprin, the more than six figures she shelled over the course of nearly a decade for seven weeks of summer camp for her two daughters at Raquette Lake Camp in the Adirondacks, was priceless.<\/p>\n
Not just for the friendships her daughters would make at the program \u2014 where tuition\u00a0starts at $17,450<\/a> per pup \u2014 or a summer free of digital distractions, but the networking. <\/p>\n \u201cThe crown jewel of these sleepaway camps is the alumni parent network that you can tap into,\u201d Weprin, 55, a Boca Raton-based content creator married to an attorney, told The Post. <\/p>\n Relationships with elite captains of industry via Raquette Lake have served as a rich resource to Weprin\u2019s girls Marlie, now 26 and Allie, now 23 \u2014\u00a0as they\u2019ve transitioned from little campers to college graduates to breadwinners in the workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weprin (Left) and her husband spared no expense ensuring their daughters enjoyed enriching summer camp experiences at upstate\u2019s Raquette Lake. Elizabeth Weprin<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always told my kids, \u2018Your Rolodex is everything,\u2019\u201d she said, referring to the business contact keeper of yore. \u201cInternships,\u00a0job opportunities, experiences \u2014 it\u2019s all about who you know.\u201d<\/p>\n And she\u2019s not the only parent making an expensive investment in their children\u2019s futures. <\/p>\n Rachael Braunschweiger Potash shells out $40,000-plus a year to send her two daughters to Camp Vega, a girls-only summer oasis on Echo Lake in Fayette, Maine \u2014 where her children have made an influential circle of friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n And this year, after already spending nearly the equivalent of a year of private school fees<\/a> on the camp experience, she\u2019s devoting an extra bit of budget towards an elite treat for her daughters 13 and 15, and their pals. <\/p>\n After bidding farewell to the comforts of their beautiful abode in Boca Raton, Florida, for the Big Apple this week, Potash will then escort her brood to Westchester, where they\u2019ll join friends\u00a0aboard a private plane\u00a0<\/a>headed to camp in Maine. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a first-class treat that Potash, along with a small group of camp parents, decided to gift their girls this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n And while the extravagant excursion isn\u2019t built into the roughly $20,000 per child camp tuition fee, it is one of the many posh perks afforded to the lucky little ones whose folks can afford to send them to swanky sleepaways \u2014 including some with annual dues\u00a0exceeding $150,000<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rachael Braunschweiger Potash (Center), a lifestyle content creator, is sending her girls off to camp in style, bringing them to NYC to catch a private flight to Maine. Courtesy Rachael Braunschweiger Potash <\/p>\n Potash tells The Post it was always her late husband\u2019s dream that their daughters follow in his footsteps and attend sleepaway camp. Courtesy Rachael Braunschweiger Potash <\/p>\n \u201cMy kids absolutely love going to camp every year,\u201d Potash, a lifestyle influencer, exclusively told The Post. <\/p>\n \u201cMoney comes and goes,\u201d said the mom, \u201cbut if you\u2019re going to spend your money, summer camp is one of the things you spend it on.\u201d<\/p>\n But while a whopping 24.6 million tots, tweens and teens across the US want their kids to experience what the Potash and Weprin children do each summer,\u00a0per a May 2026 study<\/a>, very few can actually afford access to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Millions of parents wish to send their children to summer camp, but cite high costs as a deterrent. Budimir Jevtic \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n 38% of those families cite high costs as a major deterrent, according to the report. <\/p>\n You can\u2019t blame them, as some camps cost as much as $4,500 a week, like the AI-powered summer day camp<\/a> in the Hamptons that teaches \u201clife building skills\u201d and has wild offerings such as omakase classes and a Trojan-horse workshop \u2014 and likely a super-elite rolodex of campers\u2019 parents.<\/p>\n