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Camp Woodside offers summer food and fun
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Camp Woodside kindergartners and first-graders, along with their counselors, took a break from bible study to relax on the front steps of Woodside school.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Camper Arreonia Lewis (left) hung out with one of her favorite counselors, Michala Sakotas (right) during a morning at Camp Woodside.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Arianna Burkey carefully watered her pizza garden to make sure her plants stayed hydrated on a hot June 29 day.
By SARAH FOOR
This year, Austintown kindergarten through sixth-graders are taking a trip around the world without ever leaving the confines of Woodside Elementary School.
Camp Woodside, a summer enrichment and lunch program that runs until July 29, is celebrating its third year.
Each day, the campers play games, learn about Bible stories, sing, and enjoy a free lunch. This year’s theme, “Journey Around the World,” has invited the campers to learn about different countries and their cultures, exploring a different continent each week.
Sheri Fox, assistant to camp director Nate Childers, has seen the camp grow into an important part of the community under Childers’ direction.
“Camp Woodside started with a need being met – many students in the Austintown system eat free and reduced lunches, and the Greater Austintown Ministerial Association found that state funds could cover summertime meals as well,” Fox explained.
“Over time, the camp has become something that the kids in the community really love. It’s a chance to be active and make new friends, and it’s at no cost,” she added.
This year, Camp Woodside has teamed up with Goodness Grows, which offers assistance in sustainable gardening, to create container gardens outside Woodside Elementary.
With a corporate sponsorship from Home Depot and help from CVS Topsoil, plastic swimming pools are now growing pizza gardens, with tomatoes, green peppers, onions, basil and oregano already sprouting.
Each week, area churches offer volunteers to socialize and teach the campers. On June 29, volunteer Michala Sakotas taught with her peers from Austintown’s Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church youth group.
“I’m really grateful to be involved. I love hanging out with the kids and teaching them what I know about Christ,” Sakotas said.
“The way we see it, a community is a family,” noted Fox. “We treat every Woodside camper like part of the family.”