July 2007

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Peace Camp 2007 – Peace Makers
by Denise Weldon-Siviy

This year’s Peace Camp, which ran June 18-22nd at the Gettysburg Area Middle School was a striking success. Switching for the first time to a near full-day format (9 a.m.–3 p.m.) to accommodate working parents, interest in the camp skyrocketed. With an enrollment of 42 campers and 4 junior counselors, attendance hovered between 37 and 45 children per day. This left 11 children on the waiting list. Given that we had stopped advertising in late March (at which time the camp was already filled), it would appear that we could easily fill two Peace Camps were the resources and spaces available. That’s a lovely sign for the future of Peace Making in Adams County.

During camp, the children participated in a wide range of activities, crafts, and games designed to teach them about Peace Makers of the past and help train them to become Peace Makers themselves in the future. Campers learned about Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, William Penn, and Rachel Carson. We also discussed victims of war, then made and delivered wreaths to the local memorials for Jennie Wade and Elizabeth Thorn. In addition to visiting the Cemetery, our field trips included visits to the Dobbin House, Seeds to Success, and the Gettysburg Soup Kitchen (where we reprised a favorite activity of years past in making Stone Soup). In between field trips and Peace Maker briefings, the children engineered snow globes, colored Peace posters, tied friendship bracelets, painted and arranged handprint bouquets, wrote out footprints of peace, dressed worry dolls, and wove elegant ropes with their homemade corkers.

Each day, the campers also participated in a Rice Dinner snack, an exercise designed to teach them to appreciate just how few children in the world actually enjoy the same resources as they do. Each day, the children would be given a random card containing a country name and assigned to a color group – purple, blue, or green. Purple countries (1st world) were given free choice of a full buffet table of snacks. Green (3 rd world countries – most of the list!) received plain white rice and water. Children with blue country cards were allowed to select two items from the purple table. After snack, our library volunteer helped the campers to find short picture books about their day’s country.

Lastly, the children began and finished the week in costume – wearing a selection of costumes representing various world cultures. At the very end of camp, our costumed guests performed a short show for their parents, singing songs they had learned with accompanying sign language.

Over the course of the camp, our resident photographer took about a zillion photos! If you’d like to view them, feel free to send an email to weldonsiviy@yahoo.com and Denise will send you an invitation to view her online Peace Camp photo gallery.

Overall, it was a great and incredibly productive week for the kids! Here’s hoping that “2008 – The Carbon Footprint Peace Camp” will be every bit as exciting!

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Last updated June 27, 2007

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