Camper Chat: A Kid-Eye Look at Summertime Service

Where is the best place to start making a difference in the world? Right in our own community! Summer at Severn’s Community Enrichment Camp mixes educational fun with the responsibility to take care of the people and places around us. From visiting with seniors at Sunrise Assisted Living to caring for animals at the Senior Dog Sanctuary and the Queenstown Animal Welfare League, our campers are having a blast spending their summer giving back.

Let’s Talk to the Kids

We sat down with week-one campers Ainsley, Avy, Charlotte, and Julia to hear what they thought about Severn’s Community Enrichment Camp. They were all so excited to talk about camp and other service activities they had done!

Summer at Severn Community Enrichment Campers take a break from volunteering at the animal shelter.


Why did you sign up for this camp?

Ainsley: Because I love to help people. It just makes me feel really good inside.
Avy: Yeah, I love helping people too. At Christmas, I bake cookies and deliver them to the Light House Shelter. Also they have two animal shelter activities and I love animals.
Charlotte: I did it last year for two weeks and I thought it was a lot of fun! I also really love to help people. One year, my dad and I had a day when we delivered things to the Light House Shelter and that made me feel really good even though I was having a bad day. Helping people just makes me feel better.
Julia: I really love to help people. I’ve been doing this camp for like five years now! I really love it!

What’s been your favorite activity so far?

Ainsley: I really liked going to the animal shelter because we got to wash puppies.
Julia: I also made and cut blankets and towels for the cats. It was the Queenstown Animal Welfare League. There were so many cats!
Avy: Yeah me too, I worked with the cats at first then we helped with the puppies.
Charlotte: Yeah, Ainsley and I are allergic to cats so we worked with the puppies. They needed to be washed so people would adopt them. And we cuddled with them.
Charlotte: When we were with the puppies, we named them. There was one that specifically loved each of us and we loved each of them.
Avy: Yeah all of our favorite puppies came to all of us. It was really cool.
Ainsley: They brought the puppies in the night before we came, they were so small and cute!
Julia: I’m a cat person. I prefer cats but I love dogs too so I liked helping both!
Avy: Me too, I’m a dog person that loves cats.

Any Other Favorite Activities?

Ainsley: We haven’t gone yet, that’s today but I’m really excited about going to the firehouse. The past couple of years we learned how to do CPR and we cooked for the firemen. We made tomato soup and grilled cheese. We got to purposely burn the grilled cheese to practice fire safety. I can’t wait to see what we do today!
Ainsley: I also liked the senior center. We played bingo. At my table, there were two older ladies there. One of them, she couldn’t really talk. It was a little sad, she couldn’t understand which bingo was which you’d have to tell her. But I think she liked playing and just hanging out.
Charlotte: Yeah there was a lady, Miss Clara — whenever you won you got a bag of chips — and every time she won she gave her bag of chips to someone else. It was really sweet.
Julia: (laughing) That’s how I ended up with four bags of chips even though I only won twice! Miss Clara was really sweet.
Avy: I also liked the Backpack Buddies activity. We learned about wealth distribution and how some people have more than others.
Ainsley: Yeah we each got a backpack, it was a game. Some people had tons of stuff and some had hardly anything. So then we all shared them.
Julia: Yeah my backpack had a huge chocolate bar, but I gave it away. Not because I don’t like chocolate bars, but because I’m a good friend.
Charlotte: And then we planned a meal for the Backpack Buddies. We planned a meal that won’t spoil or expire.
Ainsley: Yeah we had to plan for things that they might not be able to use right away.
Julia: Yeah and we had to think about what was healthy or not and we had a budget to follow. And later this summer we are going to deliver the backpacks.

Would you ever volunteer for one of these organizations again?

Everyone: Yes! Yes!
Ainsley: Yes! I would do them all again.
Julia: Yes! I come back every year because I love this camp and I love helping people — all the things we do.
Charlotte: Basically all of it, I would do all of it again!
Avy: I live right near the Queenstown Animal Welfare League so I will definitely volunteer there again.

Severn Service All Summer Long

Our Community Enrichment Camp is led by Severn Middle School math teacher Ms. Andi Whiteford and a rotating counselor/counselor-in-training staff including Kevin Haefner '19, Darius Harmon '19, Faith Widick '18, Lauren Gibbons-Neff '19, Kennedy Smith '19, Michael Moore, Kendall Harmon '18, Haley Foster '19, Darian Harrington '21, Chris Roth '20, Reilly Mitchell '19, and Henry Stoer '20.

One of our most popular camps, it lasts all six weeks of the season. Each morning our campers head out into the community to help people and animals at Sunrise Assisted Living, the Senior Dog Sanctuary, Queenstown Animal Welfare League, the Arnold Fire Department and the Backpack Buddies Student Food Assistance Program. At the end of camp, Certificates of Service are presented to each camper with his/her total number of hours served.

And the Puppies?

For those of you wondering about the puppies...when the camp returned the following week, every single one of the puppies our kids worked with was adopted.

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