Monday, April 16, 2007
Camp City Year 2007
Because corps members work so much in DC Public Schools, City Year DC will often be closed during the school vacations. For example, we always get some time off around Christmas and New Years. However, spring break is not a vacation for us at City Year. In fact, it is probably our busiest week of the year. Why? Because we run Camp City Year!
For many parents, finding childcare over the public school vacations can be a real burden. To lighten this weight, City Year DC runs a spring break camp for 300 K-6th graders at two schools in the city. For an entire week of camp, it only costs $10. Parents love this! The camp begins and ends at the same time of the regular school day so parents do not have to change their normal schedule too much.
Camp is my FAVORITE time of the year. It’s a break from the regular service, it’s educational, it’s FUN, and most of all it is entirely organized and administered by corps members! From the Executive Director to a Recruitment Coordinator: corps members are running the show. Last year, our theme was “Choose Your Own Adventure” and for one of the camp sites I was the mascot: a pirate. That was very fun playing that character all week and getting so much attention from the kids. This year, I was the Fine Arts teacher for 3rd-6th grade groups and I enjoyed it even more. Our theme was “Sporting Around the World.” After weeks of planning up to the week of camp, it was awesome to see the kids really enjoying the lessons. They got to do things they probably don’t do during a regular school day like making sculptures of mythological figures from ancient Greece, learning dancing and drumming for Africa Day, making Andean Pan flutes for South America Day, or even making and rolling sushi for Asia Day.
It’s also a great way to get to know other corps members better since you get to work with people who aren’t on your regular service team. Everyone gets divided into programming, recruitment, or operations/logistics which makes Camp City Year truly a joint effort by the ENTIRE corps. The weeks leading up to the camp, you can always find corps members in the office until late at night. Putting on a spring break camp for 300 kids takes A LOT of work. But the week of camp is incredibly fun and it is really great to know that we are creating an opportunity for these kids to have a ton of fun on their spring break!
For many parents, finding childcare over the public school vacations can be a real burden. To lighten this weight, City Year DC runs a spring break camp for 300 K-6th graders at two schools in the city. For an entire week of camp, it only costs $10. Parents love this! The camp begins and ends at the same time of the regular school day so parents do not have to change their normal schedule too much.
Camp is my FAVORITE time of the year. It’s a break from the regular service, it’s educational, it’s FUN, and most of all it is entirely organized and administered by corps members! From the Executive Director to a Recruitment Coordinator: corps members are running the show. Last year, our theme was “Choose Your Own Adventure” and for one of the camp sites I was the mascot: a pirate. That was very fun playing that character all week and getting so much attention from the kids. This year, I was the Fine Arts teacher for 3rd-6th grade groups and I enjoyed it even more. Our theme was “Sporting Around the World.” After weeks of planning up to the week of camp, it was awesome to see the kids really enjoying the lessons. They got to do things they probably don’t do during a regular school day like making sculptures of mythological figures from ancient Greece, learning dancing and drumming for Africa Day, making Andean Pan flutes for South America Day, or even making and rolling sushi for Asia Day.
It’s also a great way to get to know other corps members better since you get to work with people who aren’t on your regular service team. Everyone gets divided into programming, recruitment, or operations/logistics which makes Camp City Year truly a joint effort by the ENTIRE corps. The weeks leading up to the camp, you can always find corps members in the office until late at night. Putting on a spring break camp for 300 kids takes A LOT of work. But the week of camp is incredibly fun and it is really great to know that we are creating an opportunity for these kids to have a ton of fun on their spring break!
