Free summer camps help kids stay active

by Noel Brinkerhoff, American Canyon Eagle

Summertime doesn’t always mean kids lounging around the house playing video games once school gets out.

Several hundred students, in fact, began their summer vacation by exercising their bodies and brains at two free elementary and middle school camps, thanks to the Napa County Office of Education.

“We like to keep them active,” said Casey Wedding, program manager for the After Class Enrichment (ACE) program geared towards middle school students.

The summer ACE program, held at Harvest and Redwood middle schools, offered a variety of academics and physical education, including swimming and sports, plus field trips.

“The benefit is they come every day, we keep them busy, they do athletics, they swim, they do some academic stuff,” said Thanh Tran, a supervisor at the Harvest summer camp.

Wedding said the camps incorporate various activities to help kids, including young Hispanics, stay in better shape during the summer break.

“Statistics show minority students are twice as likely to increase their obesity level during summer,” said Wedding, citing data collected by the National Summer Learning Association.

NSLA is a nonprofit focused on summer educational opportunities, particularly for minorities, that strives to reduce the “summer slide,” when disadvantaged kids can “tread water at best or even fall behind” if not given the chance to keep learning from June to August, according to the organization.

But sending students to summer camps can be challenging for low-income parents. NSLA says those who can afford this opportunity reported paying an average of $288 a week.

That’s why Napa County education officials created the summer ACE program — as well as the Creating Outstanding Opportunities for Learning (COOL) program for elementary students — and made them free of charge.

They also provide free breakfast and lunch each day, Monday through Friday, for the month-long camps.

“This is a free program with two meals a day,” said Seana Wagner, NCOE’s communications director, “and it makes a huge difference for a lot of families and students.”

Both Wagner and Wedding aren’t sure what the future holds for ACE and COOL because of funding uncertainties.

The programs depend in large part on federal funding through the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which provide support for after-school and summer learning programs nationwide.

But the Trump administration and the House of Representatives each have proposed reducing this education support. The House education bill calls for cutting federal education spending by $2 billion, including a $191 million cut to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, according to the nonprofit group Afterschool Alliance.

“This is the funding that the [Trump] administration wants to cut nationwide,” said Wedding. “It’s all on the chopping block.”

Wagner said the thought of losing money for ACE, which has been operating for five years now and has steadily grown during that time, is “frightening.”

This year for the first time ACE operated at both Harvest and Redwood, serving a combined 300 middle school students. Previously, NCOE had operated it only at Harvest.

While the program is geared for kids in sixth, seventh and eighth grades, it allows some families to send the students’ younger brothers and sisters to attend as well.

“What we found in our first year is a lot of students were limited in their participation because they were the caregiver for the younger sibling,” said Wedding.

“Their parents work all day, but we wanted the middle school students to attend so we offered a sibling camp” as well, he said.

The sibling camp at Harvest focused on helping the younger children improve their literacy. Meanwhile, the older kids spent time doing project-based learning that centered on social issues, and included topics like homelessness, immigration, and preparing for a natural disaster.

Students who studied food sustainability and security took a field trip to an organic farm, visited a farmers market, and operated their own farms — on paper — to learn the economics of agriculture.

The field trip was another example of how ACE tries to get kids outside and away from their usual routines.

“Going to a farm takes them away from all the technology and social media,” said Tran.

Last year, ACE participants spent time researching different kinds of careers, both those requiring college education and those that don’t.

“We wanted to show them you can have a great career without going to college, like a trade school,” Wedding said.

Tran said she’s observed how the summer camps help kids grow into themselves, and, for those who didn’t enjoy school, become more enthusiastic about it.

“We’ve had parents who have difficult kids during the school year,” said Tran, “and they come to summer camp” and change for the better.

“It’s great to hear when kids are excited to go to camp, kids who have struggled during the school year, and they kind of just change during summer camp,” she said.

“They’re really having fun, and just being kids,” said Tran.

This article originally appeared in the American Canyon Eagle.