(OT & LONG) Day 1 of Volunteering as a counsellor for Animal Adventure Camp

As most of you already know, I volunteer at the Monroe County Humane
Association (a.k.a. MCHA, http://www.monroehumane.org &
http://www.myspace.com/mcha1), mostly doing office work, but occasionally I
help at events, like their booth at the county fair, or their annual Walk
For the Animals even helped sell spay/neuter vouchers during their Spay Day
USA event (sponsored in part by the Doris Day Animal Foundation).

Anyway, MCHA is celebrating their 50th year this year, and they decided to
try something different. That something different was a day camp for 7-11
year olds, no more than a total of 15 of them, to be held for a week (Monday
through Friday) at the MCHA office/shelter grounds (they do have a couple of
fenced in grassy areas (watch your step!), so all the dogs at the shelter
get daily walks & even some play time). It was to be called Animal
Adventure Camp, and virtually all the activities had to do with animals, or
at least learning about animals.

Those of you that know me, know that DH & I are child-*free* (as apposed to
child*less*). As a matter of fact, I prefer to maintain a distance to
diapered children, but once they get older and can speak (coherently) and,
even better, *understand* what they're being told its not so bad. So I
really don't know exactly what caused me to volunteer for this event - self
torture, I guess.

Monday I arrived early, to help set up things first thing I did was go to
get some snacks & refreshments, and try to find some hula-hoops. Did you
know Wal*Mart actually did not have any, and I had three different employees
looking for me (two in the stockrooms, one on the sales floor)? Nor did Big
Lots, Target or any of the other big-name discount department stores. We
actually ended up finding some later in the week at a grocery store! Weird,
huh?

The camp officially started at 12:30 and ended at 4:30, and each kid was
signed in/out with the time they arrived or departed. We only had a total
of 14 kids, and since there were more openings than we had expected, they
let some smaller kids enroll, but only because their older siblings were
already enrolled. There were 12 girls and two boys, and both boys were
named Brandon, with their last names starting with H. Fortunately, one
Brandon was taller (and age 9) and the other was just a wee boy aged 6
(whose 10 year old sister was enrolled), so we designated them by Big
Brandon & Little Brandon. One girls father is on MCHAs board of directors,
so we already knew her. There were also two girls (best friends) who were
both named Alexandra, but one was known as Alex, and one by Allie. There
were also four kids (the two sets of siblings) that always arrived and left
together, because they were next-door neighbors. And there were two Sarahs
in addition to the camp leader, also named Sarah. Could it be anymore
confusing? Fortunately, all the Sarahs had different last initials. The 14
kids were as follows: Kenlynn, Sarah & Brantley G (sisters), Katie & Little
Brandon (brother & sister), Alex, Allie, Big Brandon, Sarah S, Maddie,
Gwynn, Elizabeth, Elsa and Kelsey (daughter of the board member). Adults
were I, Sarah D (MCHA Education Director), another volunteer named Dawn on
Tuesday and Thursday, and Sarah Ds mom, JoAnne on Monday, Wednesday &
Friday.

I was the only volunteer that worked all five days.

Did I mention I usually avoid children?

And that I have volunteered to tend to a flock (gathering, herd????? What do
you call a group of (mostly) unrelated children?) of kids???

Is anyone calling the psych ward????

You should be!

Anyway, here are the way things happened:

*Day 1, Monday, August 7, 2006:*
Children are dropped off by parents and are signed in. We have some animal
related toys & games for them to amuse themselves with until everyone
arrives. The kids were supposed to be able to tour the shelter today, but an
outbreak of Parvo over the weekend put a nix on this, leaving us counselors
scrambling for other things to do. It also meant that Sarah D. couldn't
bring any of her foster kittens, nor any of her three dogs. Sarah D. has 2
registered Delta Society Pet Partner dogs: Daisy, a black Standard Poodle
(who really belongs to JoAnne, Sarah D.s mom) and Journey, a German
Sheppard; and another German Sheppard named Gage, who is just under a year
old, and still a bit too hyper to become a Pet Partner dog. The quarantine
also meant that it would be a pain to go to the restroom (MCHA doesn't have
their own restrooms, so we head next door to the shelter to use theirs) as
everyone leaving the shelter area had to use the footbath to stop the spread
of Parvo. The footbath being a bleach-solution-drenched towel in a pan
(kitty litter pan, actually), then they had to step on a dry towel to not
drag the bleach everywhere. Ever try to get 14 kids to A) not play with the
kittens while waiting their turn at the restroom or footbath and B) get them
to squish their feet in the footbath, and then dry them on the towel before
stampeding back to the room where the video was playing???

Once all the kids were signed in, we headed outdoors to play a couple of
games. We found a spot that was not inundated with dog-poo, and had some
fun. As of this writing, the only game I can recall is The Name Game, were
we passed a ball around the circle that we had formed, and as each person
got the ball, they said their name, then named an animal that began with the
same letter as their name. Allie Armadillo, or Sarah Salamander, for
example. Then they had to name the people before them. I might add that
A) I was at the end of the circle, and B) I was hard put to think up an
animal name that started with N. I had to ask for help, and one kid yelled
out Newt! Did I feel silly!!!! But it was ultra hot out, and everyone wore
out fairly quickly. So we headed back inside for some cold drinks & some
snacks. We watched a video (Part 1 of 4 of A Home for Pearl, about wild
animal rehab). And then we started on an art project, a diorama of some
type of animal and its habitat. The habitat was inside a shoebox, and the
critter (and whatever else we could make) was to be made from this stuff
from Crayola called Model Magic
(http://www.crayola.com/educators/tec...odelMagic.cfm), a weird sort
of modeling clay. Its more rubbery than play-doh, supposedly dries quicker
(except in humid areas, which we are) and we had all white (it is available
in a wide variety of colors) so there were no mishaps with the color
(modeling clay and pay-doh tend to bleed their colors onto kids hands) and
no arguing over who got what color! It also didn't hold together quite as
well as play-doh or regular modeling clay. Even I made a diorama! Alas,
some of the kids were more interested in tossing balls of the clay back &
forth than they were in making their project, and those are the ones that
weren't very good. Some of the others were awesome! Sarah lined the kids
up and we took their projects out to the storage shed, where they could get
baked in the summer heat until Wednesday

Finally, it was nearing 4:30, and a few parents were early in picking up the
kids. At about 4:45, all were on their way home.

I had survived day one of Animal Adventure Camp!

...........(to be continued)

--�
The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy former-blonde
in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)©
email me at nalee1964 (at) insightbb (dot) com
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep

"Magic Mood Jeep©" wrote in message
...

Those of you that know me, know that DH & I are child-*free* (as apposed
to child*less*). As a matter of fact, I prefer to maintain a distance to
diapered children, but once they get older and can speak (coherently) and,
even better, *understand* what they're being told its not so bad. So I
really don't know exactly what caused me to volunteer for this event -
self torture, I guess.


Congrats on surviving the invasion of the little people. They're too old to
be miniature humans. I got a kick out of reading all the things that you
did, and hope that the rest of week went well. The name game sounds like
fun, so I'll have to sign myself as....

Pam Panther

In nk.net,
tanada purred:
"Magic Mood Jeep©" wrote in message
...

Those of you that know me, know that DH & I are child-*free* (as
apposed to child*less*). As a matter of fact, I prefer to maintain
a distance to diapered children, but once they get older and can
speak (coherently) and, even better, *understand* what they're being
told its not so bad. So I really don't know exactly what caused me
to volunteer for this event - self torture, I guess.


Congrats on surviving the invasion of the little people. They're too
old to be miniature humans. I got a kick out of reading all the
things that you did, and hope that the rest of week went well. The
name game sounds like fun, so I'll have to sign myself as....

Pam Panther

Actually, I kinda left out the part where the only animal that started with
"n" that *I* cold think of was nematode (a microscopic worm) LOL

Let me think if I can name all the kids

Allie Armadillo
Alex Alligator
Gwyn, Giraffe
Katie Kangaroo
Kenlynn Koala
Brantley Bear
Brandon Bumblebee
Elsa Elephant
Sarah Salamander
Sarah Snake
Brandon Butterfly
Sarah----
Maddie Monkey
Elizabeth-----
Kelsey-----

I might have gotten some of the K-, B- or S names mixed up.