A camp that i worked in in my area does something that i think is really smart, and beautiful.
They send out a letter at the end of the summer saying “please show your hakaras hatov…
NO SUGGESTED AMOUNT.”
meaning that if you can, tip. howmuch? how ever much you feel, however much you can afford.
In reality, this works well for the parents, as well as the counslors. Becuase, because their is no suggested amount, the parents that are used to paying more, payed more, and the parents that could pay alot, sisn’t but the counslor ended up getting pretty much the same amounts- suggested or not, and this way no one feels bad if they can’t pay alot, no one knows.
Once again, my counslors have mixed feelings on this subject, but on thing they agree on is-
whatever you are tipping (or not tipping) a word of thanks goes a l-o-n-g way!
I remeber one of my counslors was a little hurt when she got from a kids mother- whom she spend alot of time working with and became close to the child, “Thank you for a great summer”