At the YMCA

Take Back Your Summer at the YMCA Summer Camp

by Nick McNeill,

This year, the Randolph-Asheboro YMCA Summer Camp’s theme is Take Back Your Summer. Throughout the summer, the camp will aim to give your child a structured but fun Summer Camp experience with a focus on getting kids back to being kids.

Summer camp plans for the summer include field trips, a summer long volunteer project, crafts, daily devotion, outdoor activities and other exciting activities. Each child is carefully supervised by counselors with a maximum of 1:15 child to adult ratio. All staff counselors have passed a criminal background check before they are hired. Counselors are CPR/First Aid certified, have a safe driving record and completed YMCA Counselor Training.

Campers going into Kindergarten through Sixth Grade are eligible to sign up for the camp. You can sign up for Summer Camp on the YMCA’s website or at the Y’s Front Desk. Through a Christian perspective we want to provide your child with an experience that they will remember for years. We want to provide a service that is convenient and affordable. We have scholarships available to families who may need assistance in providing a quality summer camp program for their child.

For Seventh and Eighth graders, they can take advantage of the Counselor In Training Program (CIT). The summer camp experience can be an amazing experience. It gives kids the opportunity to make friends from different schools, backgrounds and cultures. The goal of this program is to give these campers the opportunity to introduce them to new experiences. CITs will come out of this program having helped organize a Camp Wide Volunteer Project from start to finish. So 7th and 8th graders that are interested in this program will need to submit a CIT Application. All applicants will not be selected-only those who show a true desire to be leaders and a true maturity to have this kind of responsibility. All teens selected to be in the program will be required to attend the whole Summer Camp and a Training Session before Summer Camp to train and meet the other CIT’s and Counselors.

All CITs will attend CPR/First Aid training sessions provided by the YMCA. They will also be trained by the Program Directors in a modified version of the YMCA Day Camp Training Module. CITs will be supervised by the Program Directors and the Camp Counselors. The

role of CITs is to assist the Counselors, primarily with transition, lunch & snack times and with activities (crafts, games, sports, set-up/clean-up) and learn the characteristics it takes to be a YMCA Counselor. Applications for the CIT program are available on the YMCA website or can be picked up at the Y’s Front Desk.

For more information about the Randolph-Asheboro YMCA Summer Camp or the Counselor In Training Program you can visit www.randolphasheboroymca. com or email Branson O’Hara at bohara@ asheboroymca.com.