By Andrea Navas, Camp Director
(San Francisco, CA) – We started planning for Camp Don Bosco at Corpus Christi Church months before it started; each Friday meeting was filled with nerves, excitement, and new faces. We recognized how we were all there for a purpose, but not many of the youth knew what an oratory was. Sharing with them the dream of Don Bosco, we wanted them to know how he planned for young people to have a home, playground, church, and school all in the same environment. For young people to feel a sense of belonging and safety was the job he left for us to teach and transmit to the kids while at summer camp.
Training week began filled with energized youth ready to prepare camp and decorate the rooms for the kids to feel welcomed. Each day we focused on one topic such as cheers, prayers, Friday activities, field trips, and counselor night. We couldn’t end without showing our appreciation to the counselors for the work they did for the kids. We also wanted to finish training week with a parent meeting.
Well, it finally happened. The first day of camp was finally here; we were all excited to welcome the kids and their families. The counselors thought it would be a good idea to wear tutus, and as a matter of fact, it was. It helped the kids feel comfortable coming into a new space, with many of them coming to camp for the first time or seeing new faces. We started our activities in each room: Gameroom, Outside Sports, Arts & Crafts, and/or Music and Dance. Each group, by age, had a schedule of where to go, what time to be there, and who was the counselor in charge.
Each week, we had exciting events, and each Friday was a compilation of what the week taught the kids. On Fridays, we had group activities, such as water balloon fights, scavenger hunts, obstacle course, and lastly, a carnival where each kid had a chance to win tickets each day at camp for a possibility to win a prize on the last day. The counselors thought out each day to not just make it fun for the kids but also to teach them about the love of God and the four pillars of an oratory.
Don Bosco said that if we want a good society, we must do all that we can to teach our youth about Christian education; if we want to sustain civil society, then we should take care of the young. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to teach and serve the youth this year as Camp Director. I tried my best to follow Don Bosco’s dream of building an oratory for the youth to have a safe environment, and I would gladly do it again, if it meant spending time and being there for all of them.
