Tag Archives: summer camp

Empowering Kids with Disabilities to Ride: My Volunteering Journey

Posted on by
Reply

During the summer of 2024, I volunteered at a camp where I had the opportunity to teach children with disabilities how to ride a bike on special bikes. The program was called “iCanBike” and I came across it through Lion’s Heart, a teen volunteering non-profit organization. I pursued two of my friends to volunteer at the week-long camp hosted by the nonprofit organization iCanShine, and all three of us loved every moment of it. 

We attended orientation where we learned how the specialized teaching bikes worked, the student that we were assigned to teach, and different strategies to keep our student focused on biking. 

At the beginning of the week-long camp, my student rode the specialized bike that iCanShine provided while I kept full control of the handle. I taught my student how to use his pedals and how to steer. My friends and I had split jobs to keep our student engaged, as they were in charge of keeping him motivated, while I was in control of our student’s safety (like keeping the bike from running into walls). 

Gradually, my student learned how to fully pedal the bike without my assistance. Using cues, I would tap my finger on his shoulder as a reminder to keep pedaling. As the camp came to an end, my student was able to bike on a two wheel bike instead of the specialized bikes and it was so amazing to see his growth!

Overall, this was an extremely rewarding experience. I got to connect with my student one-on-one and teach him the basics of how to ride a bike. I even made an impact on his family, as his mother was so excited to see her child ride a bike. Additionally, the smile on my student’s face when he realized that he was in control and riding the bike all on his own was invaluable. His mom even got him a bike of his own, showing how I’ve had an influence on his life. This volunteer project was important to me because I realized that I can help children with special needs to gain self confidence in their skills like bike riding. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would 100% do it again.

-Sophia B

Gleanings For the Hungry

Posted on by
Reply

Imagine being followed by the scent of peaches everywhere you went. That’s what it was like serving at Gleanings for the Hungry, a Christian volunteer camp in Central California. Their main goal is to feed both the physically and spiritually hungry through shipments of dried peaches and nectarines. These are distributed to poverty countries all over the world, along with excerpts of the Bible.

Our youth group went there in July. It was a 6 hour drive, and we would be spending 6 days there although it was open all summer. When we got there, I was immediately hit with the sulfurous fumes from their plant. The weather was oppressively hot, maintaining an average of 110 degrees all day.

We got settled into our cabins, which were separated by gender. Inside were 10 pairs of bunk beds, and we would be sharing with the other churches and families. Soon after, we went to the dining building to get an overview of how our day would be like. At 5 am, we would do 1 hour of field work before the sun came up. Then, we would work in 4 shifts of 2 hours in the plant, turning peaches for the machines and sorting out the bad ones. In total, 9 hours of work a day.

My week went exactly like that. Every day, we got up early to work our shifts, taking breaks in between to eat lunch or snack. After we were completely finished with the work shifts, we cleaned ourselves up. Everybody was splattered in juice and chunks of nectarine. Crickets hopped around the bathrooms.

After work, we had free time. We happened to be at Gleanings during National Slurpee Day at 7/11, so we drove there to get free slurpees. Other days, I mostly spent time in the game room, bonding with members from the other churches. There was pool, ping pong, and card games. You could go out to the volleyball and basketball courts to challenge your friends, or go swimming in the pool. Or, you could walk around the plot of land, hiking up the surrounding hills to see the view of the far away city. Towards the end of the day, we had dinner and chapel. I got to hear amazing testimonies from some of the Gleanings’ staff.

In total, Gleanings was a blessed experience. It was the subversion of my expectations that made the experience all the more worthwhile. I thought we would be exhausted and irritable after all our work. Not to be mistaken, we were exhausted, but our smiles were as bright as the sun.

If you’re planning on going, I highly recommend it. Especially if you’re on the fence about Christianity or you’re looking for a good service opportunity. Just remember to pack clothes you’re not attached to. After Gleanings, those clothes are not recovering.

Kansas School of Engineering Camp Review

Posted on by
Reply

Student Involvement | School of Engineering

Hey Everyone!

One of the amazing opportunities I had this summer was going to an amazing camp at the University of Kansas for Engineering! This week long sleep-away camp was such an amazing experience since I am currently looking at careers in engineering.

Through the week I went to different classes where I learned more about the field of civil engineering and got to meet many different personals from the campus as well as see some guest speakers, like Phd students and professors.

Overall I would say this was a super fun camp and I would recommend it not only for people who are interested in engineering but also because of all the different people you get to meet from many different places.

Some of the cons of this camp were that it was in a different state, so it was definitely less of an environment that I was used to and in addition to planning for the camp you must also figure out the transportation. However, this camp was much more reasonably priced compared to many camps in California. Even including my flights, round trip it costed around one third of some of the other camps I was looking at located at some UC’s.

I would definitely recommend this camp for everyone because I think it’s such a fun experience, even if you aren’t too interested in engineering since it provides great insight into career options outside of engineering too, along with college guidance.

Review of San Francisco Conservatory of Music – Harp Camp

Posted on by
Reply

I recently attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s harp camp, and it was absolutely delightful. Given that I don’t live in San Francisco, my family and I flew up for a week, and my brother attended a Golden State Warriors Basketball Academy camp. My harp camp was only for five days, and we met from 12:30-4:30 for five days straight. On the last day, we held a concert.

I have been playing harp for a little while now, and I have played both pedal and lever harps. In my camp, there were a total of nine other people. 7 were on pedal, and 2 on lever, so we had both types. The conservatory provided the harps, which was good, because I didn’t have to bring my harp all the way up there. There was also a wide span of proficiency, but I was happy to note that everyone was very welcoming and supportive. Our program director, Dr. Jennifer Ellis, was also a great teacher, and she hosted a master class with us too, where we would play a solo piece for her and she would critique us.

In terms of the ensemble pieces, we were given them a few weeks before in order to practice. That was one of my only complaints, because the pieces weren’t given very far in advance, and so there wasn’t much time to practice. Additionally, because I didn’t have a harp at the hotel, I couldn’t practice after camp hours, but Dr. Ellis was willing to let me enter an hour before to get some practice in. Of the three ensemble pieces that we were given, there was one piece with three movements, one irish piece, and one classic harp ensemble piece. All pieces had multiple parts, and every person had at least one other person with the same part, so they weren’t playing alone.

Additionally, everyone had the option of playing a solo piece during their concert. Around five people decided to play, and five people opted out, so it was a balanced decision. When the concert came around, everyone played their solo pieces beautifully. There was a bit of time, so Dr. Ellis sat down and played some pieces, which was met with lots of applause, and then we all went on stage and played our ensemble pieces.

In addition to regular playing, we also had fun activities. Every day we would have a workshop after lunch, with different topics. These topics include performance techniques, history of harp, sight-reading practice, and sound effects (my personal favorite). We would also have a eurythmics break for around ten minutes.

Overall, I had a lot of fun at camp. I met 10 other harpists, played in a harp ensemble for the first time, and took a master class for the first time. It was a very positive experience. I only had two complaints – I didn’t have enough time to practice the ensemble pieces before the camp, and my fingers were hurting a lot because of the constant practice that I was doing.

I would definitely recommend this camp to anyone who plays the harp.
~ Kailyn L.

Lumberjanes Series Overview

Posted on by
2

lumberjanesA summer camp for “hard-core lady types”, filled with bear-women, dinosaurs, alternate time dimensions, and a whole lot more crazy supernatural stuff, is the setting of Lumberjanes. Lumberjanes is a graphic novel series created by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, and Brooke A. Allen. Lumberjanes is chaotic and full of the unexpected, and it’s great. It follows five best friends, April, Molly, Mal, Jo, and Ripley, during their time at summer camp, which is way more magical (literally) then they ever could have expected. And for the most part, they just roll with it, which makes for some great adventures.

The characters, both main and supporting, are diverse and well rounded. There is a lot of representation going on in these comics, which is great, especially for an all ages comic. One area of representation that I was very pleased to see was LGBT+ because it’s largely absent from most all ages/kids media.

The supernatural aspect of the story is really enjoyable. It’s a bit random and not always super explained, but it’s always really fun and just seems to work. You never know what kind of supernatural antics will occur, but whatever they are, you know they will be enjoyable, even if they don’t totally make sense.

One thing that I think is a really nice touch is the way they work the Lumberjanes earning badges into the story. For each story arc (which lasts a few comics each), there is a page at the begging detailing a badge they are working on. The story somehow ties into that. It’s an interesting take on the idea of scouts earning badges because with the Lumberjanes, the requirements for getting a badge are never as straight forward as it seems.

Being a comic series, the art is an important aspect. And honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. Their isn’t a constant artist/style for the series, and while I’ve never read an issue where the art was bad, there have been some that just didn’t feel like Lumberjanes to me. Sometimes the art is fairly realistic, sometimes it’s more stylized, so it’s really a matter of personal preference whether or not  you like the art in a specific issue. Overall though even when I’m not  a fan of the art I still love reading the comics because the story and the characters are always great.

Lumberjanes has been around for a little while now, there are currently 33 issues of the main series comic, with the 34th being released later this month, as well as a spin off series and some one-offs. This may be a bit overwhelming for some new readers, but as far as comics go it’s not really all that much, plus it would be pretty great to be able to read that many back to back without having to wait.

Overall Lumberjanes is a really fun read that’s doing some great things in terms of representation and overall is something I highly recommend.

-Angela J.

Spy Camp by Stuart Gibbs

Posted on by

spycamp_stuartgibbsStuart Gibbs wrote Spy Camp as a sequel to his first espionage novel, Spy School.  Ben Ripley, a.k.a. Agent Smokescreen, is no “regular” kid for his age. He is a spy in training for the CIA and spent the last year learning and preparing to be a spy while his friends back home think he is at a dumb science school.  That’s how secretive the CIA is.  Even his parents think that he has a scholarship to this school. However, the school year is over now.  Ben is getting ready to come home for the summer when the principal notifies him that he and all of his other classmates are going to a spy camp.  Ben has never been to camp before.  He is a little nervous, but then he receives a contract from the enemy group, SPYDER, with a death threat.  This reminded me of the song, Camp Granada, by Allan Sherman.  In the song, the young camper details all the horrible circumstances he has to endure.

Ben is put under “extra extra protection” from SPYDER.  Despite these precautions, when his special training starts in the woods, his group is ambushed.  Ben only has his friend Erica, an amazing spy, to help him.  It is very unlikely he will come out of this situation alive.  For he is wanted DEAD OR ALIVE! It was at this point when I remembered the song “Double Agent” by Rush because both Ben and the song lyrics desire to be “anywhere but here”. Ben is scared and feels as though he is useless to solving the problem at hand. To make matters worse, nobody from his family and none of his friends know how dire the state he is in.

I would recommend this book to any young spies out there or anyone who read the first book. A big thumbs up to Stuart Gibbs for Spy Camp.

-Maya S.

Spy Camp is available for check out from the Mission Viejo Public Library.