Summer Camp Round Up 2024

This week I am handing the blog over to Dr Claire Verden who has written a lovely review of this year’s camp…….

Well, it seems summer has passed by and September has rolled around; where did those long, lazy days go? Not that lazy describes our summer! Lazy is not a word that anyone would use when talking about the summer of 2024 at Educators for Eleuthera camp! For five weeks we provided academic enrichment activities as well as a whole lot of extra-curricular fun. The children enjoyed art, sports and games, music and much more over the long summer break from school.

We saw over 100 different children over the course of those five weeks and thanks to your generous donations, we were able to offer this program free to families in the community. The children ranged in age from 4 to 12, with a very large group in the 4–5-year-old age range (herding ants comes to mind!). Each child received a reusable water bottle, snacks and a nutritious lunch each day in addition to the supports from our fabulous teachers and assistants. This summer we enjoyed our first ever full camp field trip – to The Levy Preserve. The children were able to feed the turtles and learn about plants and animals native to their island. We had the visit of an ice cream truck! As you can imagine this was a huge hit as you can see from the photos.

Let’s talk about our amazing teachers for a second. This summer for the first time we had two home-grown teachers from Eleuthera who are previous campers and teacher assistants; they have been involved with our program for over 6 years.  They are now high school graduates and did an exceptional job running the 8-10 year-old group this summer. Kylin Pinder and Jade Thompson are incredible young people from Governors Harbour who made us, their families and their community proud this summer.  Kylin and Jade earned stipends for their work which they will use toward their college education; Jade is, as we speak, taking classes in physics at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. We also had four young people working as teacher assistants this summer, Dionne, Shakara, Charity and Shandera showed up each day with a smile on their faces and an amazing ability to work with our campers. We look forward to working with them over the next few summers until they are also ready to run their own groups.

Our volunteer teachers, who pay their own way to come and give of their summertime so freely are truly amazing. Many thanks to Stephanie Ferry, Mary Nottingham, Emma Ferguson, Katie Rondos, Aubrey Ouimet, Bridget Clarke, Mandi Murray and Philippa Stainton. And of course, no thanks would be complete without recognizing our program director Hannah Cunliffe. Hannah is the heart and soul of camp and oversees all of the planning and implementation of each activity for each day; to put it succinctly, she is a rock star!

Camp would not be possible without the help and support of the following folks and local businesses: Mrs. McPhee-Pinder, the amazing Principal at Emily G Petty Primary School. Without her support and guidance, we would not be able to hold camp- she is there every day should we need her and her assistance is invaluable.  Kathy Colman, sorry Kathy but it must be said! Kathy helps with not only putting out our information in her blog but coordinates with me to get all our materials to Eleuthera in time for camp- this is a huge undertaking and involves moving a lot of boxes!

The Buccaneer: year after year they order the food for lunches and snacks and coordinate water and ice for us; in particular Sidhira Johnson has been our go-to person this summer and has been so helpful. Sue Charlow at Burrows Grocery Store has helped us so many times in a pinch when we needed last minute things for lunch or snack! The Levy Preserve manager Lakeisha Campbell coordinated our field trip and made sure that the children had an educational and fun day out. Ms. Kaye Culmer and her Ice Cream Truck; Grammy’s Sweet Treats, came right to camp and made sure each child had an ice cream of their choice. Horatio Smith of Da Perk has been a supporter of camp for many summers, thank you.

Finally, thank you to all the wonderful donors who read this blog. Know that you make a real and significant difference in the lives of the children of Governors Harbour- they are so thrilled to come to camp each day and just thrive with the structure and fun that they have there.  Planning is already in place for next summer and if you would like to make a tax-deductible gift before the end of the year scan these QR codes to Venmo or our website accounts!  As a reminder, we are a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization: 84-3546713.

Thanks for this Claire – have a good weekend to all our readers and supporters……..