Winter Wonderland features craft projects and outdoor sports
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Choosing among crafts galore, table tennis, basketball, soccer and more is the challenge of the YMCA's It's a Winter Wonderland day camp.
Running for the two weeks over the school holiday break, the camp offers a veritable feast of options to keep the kids happy and busy. As of Monday morning, 52 children had attended the camp. Many of them were drawn from the six off-site or one on-site after-school care programs the YMCA offers during the school.
Despite the melting snow, the campers stoked themselves with fun, switching activities every half hour. Last week, they frolicked outdoors, making snow forts and competing in a snowman building contest. This week, it was the ropes course, games on the soccer field and nature exploration.
"The most fun was Big Foot - hide and seek in the woods," said Jonathan Zamaites, 8, who attended the camp with his sister, Jenna, 5. "Also, rally ball [a kid-friendly modified tennis game] and snowflake volleyball."
Craft activities were also popular and the upstairs craft room hummed with activity Monday afternoon as campers made colorful snowflakes.
"I like when we do arts and crafts," said Alexis Kieliszewski, 8.
Camp participants range in age from 4-14 and come from around the region. The YMCA supplies a counselor for every ten campers. The counselors are mostly college students who camp director Jude Cornett deems miracle workers.
"They are wonderful, I can throw something at them and they will pull something together in a minute," said Cornett, who has been the child care, camp and family director with the YMCA for three years.
Cornett noted that while the camp's days rest on a foundation of her meticulous planning, she is always ready to modify. If some kids have what she terms a spider idea, an offshoot or a new direction for an activity, she and the counselors help them run with it.
"As long as they're creating, we want them to create," she said. "We give them the ideas and it is neat to see it blossom."
Cornett also emphasizes a family atmosphere in the camp, using a buddy system among the kids and tapping dedicated counselors to keep everything running smoothly. Her own two sons have grown up involved in YMCA activities and she said her goal is to create the camp as a safe, fun place for the children.
"A lot of our counselors from our summer camp are here for the Winter Wonderland camp, so there's a lot of catching up going on," Cornett said.
"It's like a big family here," she added. "We really stress that so that everybody gets a closer bond with one another."
Other activities during the camp included a three-on-three basketball tournament, team building games, science projects and Christmas crafts. Campers also took advantage of the facility's 40-acre grounds to explore nature, with hot chocolate and cookies greeting them when they return indoors. The Boardman River on one side and Miller Creek on the other give the acreage a tranquil natural setting.
"The creek flows through our ropes course and we went canoeing and kayaking into November, though it got chilly," Cornett noted. "Even though the kids are not in school, they're still learning, the hands-on way is the best way."
Scott Kovarik is spending his winter break from Hope College working at the camp. A veteran of the summer camp, the junior physical education major enjoys working with the children.
"They're really creative, some of the stuff they do I couldn't come up with," Kovarik said. "I like interacting with the kids because they are a bunch of fun."
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