July 2005

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Peace Camp 2005

by Denise Weldon-Siviy

Peace Camp 2005, Feeding a Hungry World, was a wonderful experience for all involved! This year we had 29 children under 12, plus 13 junior counselors and 14 adult volunteers involved on one day or another. This included the director’s sister, who was drafted while visiting from Pittsburgh, and Sam Mudd, who has now staffed the registration desk and helped to clean up nearly every year that Peace Camp has run!

A big draw this year was the addition of field trips to our Peace Camp curriculum. Because this year’s theme was Feeding a Hungry World, we took field trips to Seeds To Success, the Soup Kitchen, the Food Pantry, and the Homeless Shelter. The children did their parts to reduce world hunger by planting food seeds to take home, making Stone Soup at the Soup Kitchen, and packing bags of groceries for local seniors at the Food Pantry. The stone soup was served as a side dish to soup kitchen guests the next day and was truly delicious!

The kids also learned about nutrition from USDA expert Sally Duncan and played outstanding cooperative games, led by child expert, and grandma extraordinaire, Mary Gemmill. Around these activities, we also made snow globes, created seed collages with various beans, dyed rices and other seeds, wove God’s eyes, and produced Thumbprint Art (to make use of our “green thumbs”). Between games, Mary also had the children use stones to grind flour from grains of wheat they picked from the stalks themselves, and created lovely bouquets of fragrant herbs.

We finished the week with a parachute Thank You game, and were greatly honored that one of the parents brought flowers for the counselors and junior counselors.

For anyone interested in Peace Camp, this year’s director, Denise Weldon-Siviy, has posted digital photos of the event to her free online Kodak gallery account. If you’d like instructions on how to view or download those photos, just send an email to Denise at compulsive_reader@adelphia.net.

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Last updated July 13, 2005

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