Summer activities and child care for school children will be offered by at least five organizations in Emporia this year. Ages, activities, food arrangements and other aspects of summer care vary from site to site. Below is a synopsis of each program, and a graphic illustration comparing costs, times, and services offered.
Boys & Girls Club
The Boys & Girls Club of Emporia, which operates out of the Kansas Avenue building, 315 S. Market St., will begin its 10-week summer camp program on Memorial Day, May 28, according to director Gina Scali.
“We might have a small group that day,” Scali said. However, not everyone has a holiday on May 28 and the B&G summer program will be open.
Fishing, swimming, bowling, zoo visits, movies and Brown Bag lunches at the library are on the summer schedule, and other activities are being arranged. Scali is working with the Emporia Arts Council for an activity and is trying to partner with Camp Alexander on others. Grant applications are under way for some of those.
“There’s just so many (possibilities) and we’re still working on them,” Scali said.
Fund raising also is being sought to help defray or eliminate charges for some or all of the activities. Success of the fund-raising events will determine whether participants pay the $7 full cost of a movie pass, for example, or whether it will be reduced-cost or free.
Camp sign-up can be done at the club any time after 3 p.m. weekdays, or from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday at Wal-Mart. Donations also will be accepted there.
The first official fund-raising activity will be a car wash from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 12 in the parking lot at Auto Zone, 825 W. Sixth Ave.
Boys & Girls Club also operates an after-school program at a cost of $10 per year. The club has a bus that will pick up children after school and bring them to the club, where they may stay until 6:30 p.m. The club also is open on early-release days, Scali said.
For information, call Scali at 340-7742 or e-mail her at gmscalii@yahoo.com.
Camp Alexander
Resident and day camps are available at Camp Alexander, east of Emporia.
Director Sara Shaw said that in addition to core activities such as fishing, archery, hiking, boating, and riding the mud slide, each week of camp will feature a different theme. Samples of camp themes are “Swamp Week,” “Pirates of the Plains,” Wild Water Week,” “Bike Week” and “150th Camp Celebration” in honor of Emporia’s sesquicentennial.
The camp emphasizes “hands-on learning of outdoor life skills and positive character-trait building. And all of this is done through play, so kids don’t really realize they’re learning,” Shaw said.
Each Thursday night, the camp has a parents’ program.
Children can enroll for the week or the summer and as a day camper or resident. Discounts at $10 per sibling are offered to families with more than one child participating. Campers without sibling participation may earn a $10 discount by bringing one friend. Camp price discounts also are offered to second and succeeding siblings.
A pre-registration camp day will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on May 25. Families will join the campers from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for free hot dogs and hamburgers. the event is sponsored by Camp Alexander and the Emporia Boys & Girls Club. Families that participate are asked to bring a covered dish to share.
For information, call Shaw, 342-1386.
Emporia Christian School
Sea life will be the theme for the summer program at the school. Applications now are being taken and will continue until the programs are filled.
“Our space is limited, so we’re going to go up to 12 in the pre-school realm and probably about 15 to 16 in the school-age program,” said Jim Sanborn, principal.
Science, mathematics and reading will be interwoven with the sea theme on alternating weeks, he said. Topics will cover waves, currents, pirates, environmental awareness, beaches, and others. Children will take field trips to attend brown bag concerts, go to the library, the aquatic center, Sweet Granada, Rollers and the Emporia Zoo.
Bible lessons also will be included.
About $13,000 worth of new playground equipment is being installed. ABC Creative of Kansas City gave a matching grant to the school to pay for the equipment. Sanborn said the grant amounted to about $6,800.
“Pauls Productions is putting it in for us, so that saves us the cost,” he added.
For information, call 342-5353.
Summerscape
Field trips and activities are planned daily for students in Summerscape, according to Adraina Holopirek, director. The program, run through the Lee Beran Recreation Center, is held at local elementary schools. The sites will be announced after they are approved April 14 at a meeting of the Emporia Board of Education.
The schedule includes summer movies on Tuesdays, swimming on Wednesdays, skating on Thursdays and swimming again on Fridays. Holopirek said that bowling on Mondays had proven popular and that option is under consideration. The Emporia Arts Council also will come to the playgrounds once each week to work on a project with the children, and trips will be made to the zoo and to selected brown bag concerts at the Emporia Public Library.
Videogames and sprinklers are available for children who do not want to skate or swim, she said.
“The kids are active all summer,” she said. “They’re so tired at the end of the day, they just go home and crash.”
All activities and bus rides, breakfast, lunch, and snacks are included in the weekly fee. Items like popcorn and soda pop at movies are not included.
Holopirek said that because Summerscape is licensed through the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, all staff members have completed four different trainings and a 1-5 leader-to-child ratio must be maintained.
Enrollment began on Monday. Parents will need to fill out information forms to complete enrollment. Packets may be picked up at the recreation center.
For information, call 340-6300.
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army includes a religious aspect to its eight-week summer camp program.
“It’s a character-building program,” Capt. Mark Haslett said in an earlier interview.
The cost is $50 a week for each child for the eight-week camp, which will run from June 4 through July 27 this year. Special prices and scholarships are available for children in families that have multiple camp participants.
Youth programs Director Rose Colunga said that the camp is limited to 24 children per day. Waiting lists are kept so families can be called when participants go on vacation or cannot attend.
Registration is open now for children between 6 and 12 years of age, though Colunga said that 5-year-olds who will turn 6 during the summer camp are eligible.
There are no income limitations to be eligible to enroll, and the camp is open to the public.
For information, call 342-3093.