By Bro. Joseph Lockwood, SDB

(Salesian Boys’ and Girls’ Club – San Francisco, CA) – On June 20th around 100 boys and girls (along with the club staff) loaded three buses at Salesian Boys’ and Girls’ Club, San Francisco to travel to Camp St. Francis, Aptos, CA for days of fun, excitement and adventure.

The camp day began around 8:30 am with a wonderful and tasty breakfast prepared and served by 3 club alumni (Mike Cardella, Richard Azzolino (owner of Sotto Mare Restaurant, San Francisco) and Jim Piccehi.  These wonderful cooks not only prepared and served breakfast, but also the lunch and dinner as well.

The activities for the day always began with a good morning from Mr. Randy DeMartini,  the Club’s Executive Director.  This was followed by activities: baseball, basketball, volleyball arts and crafts, and just running around the seaside camp.

After a wonderful lunch, the beach activities began that included playing beach football, swimming, building sand castles, and other fun activities.

The beach lifeguard, Nate Cassorla was very diligent.  He instructed all of the campers that water safety is very important and you must observe the life guard signals.  One of these is the life guard’s “floaty.”  One afternoon while all of the activities were in full swing, Nate noticed that a shark was eating a sea lion.  Immediately, Nate waved the “floaty” and everyone responded by getting out of the water.  From the safety of the shore they observed nature at work — the shark eating the sea lion.  That was an experience!

Randy decided that a “little” nature hunt was appropriate in this beautiful locale with all its many natural environmental areas.  As they were walking, one of the boys spotted a snake, wow!  As they got closer to the snake, another boy identified it as a garter snake, so he picked it up.  Now that was exciting.
Everyone had a great time at Camp St. Francis.