Camp Alexander Director Sara Shaw knows just what she’s going to do with what she calls a $31,000 “blessing” the camp received on Tuesday.
The donation, from the E.L. and Z. Irene Hopkins Foundation, was announced Tuesday morning by Michelle Hopkins Molinaro, executive director and foundation manager, and Thomas A. Krueger, board member and attorney for the foundation.
“The purpose of this grant is to assist Camp Alexander’s executive director, Sara Shaw, and her staff in the camp’s mission of providing leadership, teamwork, outdoor and adventure education activities and programs for the children of Emporia and surrounding communities,” Molinaro and Krueger said in a news release.
Much of the grant will underscore team-building, problem-solving and leadership among children.
“A lot of it’s going to go to help out with the youth programs that we do,” Shaw said. “Mainly the ones that we focus in the schools, do leadership and team-building activities.”
Shaw said that the programs at Camp Alexander have burgeoned because of the foundation’s donations for the past nine years.
“We are growing so much and so quickly,” she said. “We’ve had to completely restructure our board and that’s just so exciting to me.”
The board, which had been an advisory group, has become an active organization, with subcommittees formed to focus directly on the additional programs and scope of operations added in recent years, she said. The subcommittees also help with professional development for Shaw and her staff.
For a time, she had been anxious about whether the grant would be continued still another year. It has become essential to the camp’s continued growth.
“They have been funding us for a long time on these projects,” Shaw said. “Without them, we would not be where we are.”
Camp Alexander has developed far beyond the old weekend summer retreat, with its occasional week-long activities. It now offers a schedule of day and overnight camps full of outdoor fun and adventures, with the added bonus of leadership training and social development.
Shaw and her crew also have adapted their action programs to take into school systems for QUEST and similar after-school activities as part of the camp’s expanded interaction with the community.
They have taught fishing skills and team-building at Walnut School and are on the calendar to present “Club CA” activities at Village School soon.
“We go into schools and teach leadership and problem-solving and just basically how to get along,” Shaw said. “It’s much more necessary to have that social development,” which fits into Club CA’s “adventure education.”
They also help out at field days at the schools and have special activities for youngsters on weekdays when school is not scheduled.
Shaw’s goal is for children to feel that they’re playing, while they’re learning good lessons for life at the same time.
“Camp’s such a valuable experience,” she said. “We keep our costs really low. We don’t turn anyone away. That’s kind of been our policy forever.”
eelork (anonymous) says...
Way to go Hopkins Foundation and Sara Shaw! It's nice to know that someone is still willing to invest in the children of the area. With so many families and children going through difficult times, this is money well invested in the future of Emporia!
February 6, 2008 at 3:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )