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Campbell camp solidifies friendships
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Nathan Wilson, 6, left, and Andrei Wilder, 7, play a game during summer camp in Roosevelt Park in Campbell. Tuesday was the first day of the camp, which is open to kids in kindergarten through sixth grade.
By jeanne starmack
campbell
In a pavilion at Roosevelt Park on Tuesday, 7-year-olds Shamya Miller and Delanie Livolsi were continuing something important they’d left off at school: their friendship.
It was Day One of the ninw-week-long Campbell summer day-camp program that’s run by Neighborhood Ministries. About 45 kids from kindergarten through the sixth grade were gathered under the pavilion. They’d finished lunch, had a walk around the park and were waiting to see what was planned next.
Delanie and Shamya, who will go into second grade together at Campbell Elementary School this fall, sat companionably close together a little apart from the rest of the group. They were obviously tight.
“We’re friends in school,” Delanie explained. “She’s always crazy at school. I asked her brother if she’s crazy at home and he said, ‘Yes!’”
The camp, in its fourth year, is open to any student in kindergarten through sixth grade — yes, even older brothers are welcome. Shamya’s brother Rtell, who’s going into fifth grade, and Delanie’s brother, Nathan, who will be in fourth, were there Monday afternoon, too.
The program used to be at the Kirwan Homes in Campbell but has moved to the park and is open to children throughout the city, said Gerald Hamilton, Neighborhood Ministries program director. There are no income requirements, and the agency’s van even will pick up children and bring them to the park, making several trips, if need be.
Children from outside the city are welcome also, but they have to provide their own transportation, he said.
From noon to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, the camp provides lunch and activities that range from learning how to golf to swimming at the YMCA to lessons on nutrition, Hamilton said. It is funded through donations. Neighborhood Ministries is affiliated with 17 other agencies in an organization called Neighborhood Action Program that receives funding from American Baptist Churches USA, he said.
A reading program that will begin next week is the only part of the camp that is funded by a grant from the Swanston Foundation. It’s an extension of an after-school intervention program, Hamilton explained.
But whether kids are reading at grade level or below or above it, they will read, and their reading will improve, he said.
All the kids in last year’s program increased their reading skills, he said.
“So we know that it works,” he said, adding that kids will spend one hour a day in the reading portion of the camp. “They signed up for library cards,” he said. “They’ll do skits, team-reading, and they’ll write their own stories.”
Delanie is looking forward to the reading. “I already read two whole “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books yesterday,” she said.
Hamilton said the camp attracts between 60 and 70 kids each year.
“Thirty-five signed up yesterday,” he said, and more likely will do so as the summer goes on. Neighborhood Ministries can be reached at 330-755-8696.