But more than lineage lured her. The Cherry Hill resident is just one of a record number of recent college graduates working at camps this summer. As the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds stays stagnant at 9 percent, more graduates are trading university cafeterias and dorm rooms for mess halls and camp bunks.
Camp Ramah's director, Rabbi Todd Zeff, said he had rehired Sietz from the largest group of college graduate applicants he had ever seen. The camp hired 24 - twice as many as last year.
Zeff even turned down some counselors who had worked at Camp Ramah - which employs 225 staffers and brings in 400 campers a summer - all through their college years and who were hoping for promotions.
"We were able to offer them other positions, but there were certainly some who were disappointed," Zeff said.
Though the American Camp Association, which accredits 2,400 camps nationally, does not keep hard data, Ellen Warren, an administrator for the group, said the average age of camp staffers had increased in the last three years.
"We've hired some of the most talented staff I think we've ever had. We have had more people than ever who are in their later 20s and 30s because of the depressed market," said Tina Krinsky, director of Julian Krinsky Camps, which hires 500 counselors and staff for the company's three camps and 21 programs in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
One of those 500 staffers is Emily Felsenthal, who graduated from Villanova in May with a degree in Spanish and a minor in peace and justice studies.
"A lot of the things I was looking to do were kind of not working out. That's kind of the economic crisis right there," Felsenthal said.
She said that she had hoped to win a Fulbright scholarship for research abroad, but that with a record number of applicants this year, she wasn't offered a spot.
This summer she'll put her career aspirations to work by running a community service program through Julian Krinsky to help at-risk youth in Philadelphia.
"I think it's one of the few jobs that a lot of people our age are most definitely able to get and they're usually pretty well-paying, really fun jobs, especially if you're just trying to keep busy for a few months before you have to face the real world," she said.
At Pine Forest, Lake Owego, and Timber Tops camps, all in Greeley in Pike County, assistant camp director Rachel Chadwin said recent graduates who couldn't find other work make up about 30 percent of her 400-member staff. That's up from 15 percent last year, she said.
Cindy Fleming-Powell, director of Miquon Day Camp in Conshohocken, said she had noticed an uptick in professionals applying for summer positions. When she needed a music specialist for the camp this summer, she received four times as many seasoned professional applicants as in past years.
"And I'm not talking about first year out. I mean people who have been teaching for more than eight years who are out there looking for summer pay," she said.
Most of the applicants, however, wound up losing interest when they saw the salary, she said.
"They probably thought they could do better as a waitress," she said.
Many camp directors see their applicant pool draining if the job market improves.
"We're reaping the benefits now, but once the economy picks up, it will be slimmer pickings," said Michael Rouse, director of ESF Summer Camps, which has six Pennsylvania locations.
But self-described lifelong camper Cheryl Magen doesn't see it that way. She runs the first-ever online master's degree program in camp administration from Touro University in Nevada.
"Over the past five to 10 years, the professionalism of the camp industry has really taken a jump forward," Magen said.
At Ramah, Sietz is busy organizing the art room for this week's arriving campers. But, she said, even though she's spent nearly half of her summers there, this could be her last.
"I've had a good run. A lot of kids I had will be counselors for a new bunch of kids," she said. "This is the first summer where I'm not going to intentionally plan to come back, but who knows what it's going to be like out there?"
Contact staff writer Julia Terruso at 610-313-8110 or jterruso@phillynews.com.
