2022 SPARK Summer Enrichment Camp
The six week summer camp in 2022 bounced back after two years of impacts from COVID-19, and a lot of magic happened each day. Brightwood Community Center collaborated with TeenWorks, with youth from that program developing curriculum each week and leading instruction, under the guidance of Executive Director Shonna Majors, in math, science, reading, writing and spelling. The center was filled with fifteen kids ranging in age from 4 – 12 and fifteen youth ages 13 – 18 each day from 8:00 am – 4:30 pm.
Each week the campers went swimming at Frederick Douglas Park, with many of the kids and some youth barely putting their toes in the water at the beginning, but were jumping in the deep end and goind down the slide by the end of camp. The teens helped the kids build volcanoes, robots, play math games and musical chairs. Each day Miss Shonna led a circle time discussion, asking the kids and teens about their emotions, how to respond when frustrated or angry, how to walk away, how to say “I’m sorry”, appropriate personal hygiene, conflict resolution and many other topics. Each week a different adult speaker came in to talk about vocational and career learning.
Huge impacts were made on the lives of these kids and teenagers, as well as on the adults who interacted with them. Even BWCC’s neighbors got involved, as they sat on their porches, waving and talking with the kids on their weekly walk to and from the park for swimming.
