Summer camp has become a tradition over the past decade. What started with a handful of kids during one week has grown into a month-long summer camp with over 100 children. Last year’s summer camp was canceled due to the pandemic, much to the disappointment of kids and parents alike. This year, however, we got creative and crafted a COVID-friendly summer camp.
With 84 kids and 14 volunteers, this year’s summer camp was a little smaller than usual. COVID protocols meant limiting the number of attendees, holding almost all activities outdoors, not doing any field trips, and removing the lunch component of camp. Still, everyone was eager to return to camp this year!
New offerings included activities specifically designed for middle school kids. In years past, Doxa’s camp was only open to elementary aged kids, but now many of Doxa’s students are growing up. Ely was instrumental in putting together age-appropriate offerings for middle schoolers. These included physical activity games, DARE classes by Tijuana police officers, and psychologist-led mental health and sex-education seminars.
Meanwhile, the elementary school kids were busy with the usual arts and crafts, sports games, and activities. Thankfully, there were plenty of adult volunteers around to run the various stations.
Since there were no field trips this year, Flavio and Sabino put together a water obstacle course for the last Friday of camp. Something special that we haven’t done before. Kids were split into two teams and competed against each other to see who could finish the course in the fasted time. Everyone enjoyed it so much that I think we’ve inadvertently created another summer camp tradition.
Overall, it was so good to be active, playful, and creative around one another again. For many, this summer camp was the first time in over a year that they had really been around other people or did team activities. Time to dust the wheels off and get moving again!
