We are in full preparation mode for our summer camp, Wizarding World of Fantasy and Fun! The first place to start is with an enormous thank you to Cindy Arnold. She basically created this summer camp, affectionately known as “Hogwarts,” and has planned and organized it for the past several years. It has been an incredibly successful and amazingly run camp. Due to her increasing responsibilities in her career, she will not be leading the charge of camp this year. Thanks to Cindy, we have a well-organized and brilliantly conceptualized model to continue into the future.
The camp is mostly populated by children outside of our congregation, with many returning year after year. It’s an amazing
community outreach event and is a service project-oriented summer camp. The campers learn about a local nonprofit’s service to our community and get to meet with a representative from the organization to hear about the program and ask questions. In the past we’ve worked with the Raptor Center and Smoky Mountain Service Dogs. The campers do a service project throughout the week that also benefits the org
anization in some way. We basically adopt an organization for the week, and the campers feel a great ownership and pride in “their” service project organization.
So in the spirit of service, we’re turning to the congregation for additional support in running camp this year. We’ve had a great group of people who have turned up to help each year, and we’d love to include you on that list!
Here’s a list of the types of various volunteer spots we could use filled:
Clean up crew—show up around 1:45 pm and help straighten up the sanctuary for the following day. Includes the tasks of wiping down tables, vacuuming, general tidying up. Usually done by 2:30. You can sign up for as many days as you’d like during the week.
Assist with activities—we can always use extra hands for several activities that happen throughout the week, like Diagon Alley, the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Quidditch, lunch and free play, or the crafts that go along with our service project. Generally, it would be about a two-hour time slot that would be scheduled on a certain day of the week. Or you could come in for a morning or afternoon and just be available to whatever is going on. We could always use an extra set of eyes and pair of hands!
Teach or assist with a class. We’ve got tons of ideas if you’ve got a particular skill or craft that you’d like to share with campers that can be created in the Harry Potter world theme. Some example of classes in the past have been Herbology (creating individual terrariums), Potions (making slime), Harry Pottery (pinch pot cauldrons), Erucology (papier mache craft) and Hydrology (water play). We’d be happy to help you create a class if you have ideas!
Help with preparations before camp. We’ve got several things to get ready before camp. Usually we prepare materials a week or two ahead of time: we could use several people to help with doing simple things like cutting out the house points tickets, preparing materials for Diagon Alley (making wands, cutting out forms for wizard hats, etc.)
Camp set up. On the Sunday before camp starts, we need to get all the rooms ready for the campers to arrive the next day. Each of the RE rooms turns into either Diagon Alley or a House room. The sanctuary becomes the Great Hall. We need help moving tables and chairs and getting everything in place. We could 5-10 people who’d be willing to stay after church for about an hour or so.
Camp goes from 9-2, Monday through Friday, June 11-15. For those of you with children who want to attend camp, registration will open soon!
If you’d like to sign up to help, please contact DRE Wendy Weiss at dre@westsideuuc.org or 865.226.9191