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Letters from camp on way to serve military
(by Amy L. Fahnestock - August 02, 2012)
Letters from camp on way to serve military
By AMY L. FAHNESTOCK
Kids attending summer camp are encouraged to write letters to their families back home. The letters written recently by those attending sports camp at the Chagrin Valley Athletic Club (CVAC) took a different route: They were sent to those serving in the U.S. military.
The letter writing campaign was part of the first-ever Service Week at the week-long day camp.
The 25 campers, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, spent their activity time one day with colored paper, crayons and markers, writing letters of appreciation and/or drawing picture messages.
They were instructed to “keep the message simple, not too specific,” said Chris Stoffl, sports camp director. That would allow the recipient organization, A Million Thanks, to decide whether the individual letter is most appropriate to send to someone serving, a wounded soldier or a veteran.
“The counselors helped the campers out a little,” he said. “Some wrote letters, some of the younger campers drew pictures and, in all, we were able to send somewhere around 30 letters.”
Mr. Stoffl and his assistant, Chris Lukas, had been concerned about whether the campers would be receptive to the quiet, indoor project. Most of the camp activities are active, physical games played outdoors.
“The campers took to it pretty well,” said Mr. Lukas, who presented the project that day. After instructing the campers “to say thank you for keeping the rest of us safe, we explained that this was our way to provide service back to them. They actually were really into it, there were no complaints.”
In fact, when some of them finished ahead of the others, they requested to do more. “We let them write as many letters as they wanted,” Mr. Stoffl said.
The letter-writing idea wasn’t much of a stretch for Mr. Stoffl to come up with and was close to his heart. Not only is he familiar with the A Million Thanks website, but one of his brothers is a veteran.
“And a couple of the kids had family members that had been or were currently serving,” he said before heading to a new teaching job in Chicago. “We allowed them to keep their letter and give it to their family member.”
Although it is a weekly day camp, some campers attend for several weeks or even the entire summer. Themes such as Service Week add variety. Other themes this summer have included Green Week, which focused on recycling and planting flower seeds, Minute to Win It Week with its silly stunts and games, and Olympics Week, which will stretch over the next few weeks while Mr. Lukas takes over the position of sports camp director.
This is the 10th year of CVAC’s coed summer sports camp for ages 6-12. Ages 4-6 have a choice of coed weekly junior camps, with fun and games camp from 10 a.m. to noon and swim camp from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
CVAC is at 17260 Snyder Road, Bainbridge Township. For more information, contact Teri Dombrowski, fitness manager, at 440-543-5141.
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