Last week I finished most of my volunteer hours for high school by volunteering at a summer camp close by. I spent pretty much the entire week there, so I’ll be writing about my volunteer experience this week.
The camp I volunteered for was an outdoor challenge course that had obstacles like rock climbing and other interesting things. The obstacles they had didn’t seem too recognizable to me besides the rock climbing though. Some of the other obstacles that were there was a vertical climb with rope walls, tires, and wooden beams. Another obstacle was a bunch of wooden crosses suspended in the air that got smaller as you went up. Climbing the obstacles wasn’t the only thing they did there though because when we weren’t climbing they played outdoor games and sometimes did crafts inside.
I got to the camp around 15 minutes earlier than the campers do, but since setting up the obstacle equipment requires special training, I just helped set up a table and chairs for parents to sign their kids in. For the rest of the day, I just had to make sure the kids weren’t fighting, and if the counselours needed some help or needed to get something they asked me to do it. That was pretty much all I did for the five days that I was there.
The campers there were between 9-13 years old, so some of them weren’t even that much younger than me. When they did outdoor games sometimes I played with them, or when they were eating their lunch I would come off my break early and talk with some of them. Basically, I was just another camper, but I just didn’t participate in some of their activities and made sure they stayed safe.
Overall, I got over three-quarters of my volunteer hours finished by not doing much at all really. I think it was pretty easy volunteering there. The hardest part was dealing with the kids that thought they were superior to the other campers, but the rest of the time it was smooth sailing.