YOUTH For recipients of the Gándara Center’s Aventura! Summer Camp Scholarship, memories were made last July and August that will last a lifetime. These children and teens were given the opportunity to participate in either the city of Springfield’s Summer Enrichment Programs or Camp STAR Angelina in Forest Park. “I made a lot of new friends,” said 14-year-old Hanna on a hot Aventura! Summer Camp Scholarship: Making Memories for Springfield Youth August day at Camp STAR Angelina. “My favorite part of camp was playing sports and games like capture the flag. It was a lot of fun.” The Aventura! Summer Camp Scholarship Program, a partnership between Gándara and the city of Springfield’s Department of Parks, Buildings, & and Recreation Management (DPBRM), was created last year to offer Springfield youth age 5-18 the opportunity to attend one summer camp session for free. The genesis for the scholarship, which has been offered for two straight summers, was the Gándara Center reaching out to parents in the community: many of them said they lacked not only child care during the summer months, but also fun, educational, and safe activities for their children. June, the mother of two Camp STAR Angelina campers, said the experience boosted both her daughters’ self-confidence. “I really appreciated this scholarship. My girls loved camp. It was great for their self-esteem—they tried new things and they learned how to deal different situations and how to get along with kids they didn’t know,” she said. “Every day, when they got home, they talked about camp constantly, and I enjoyed hearing how their days went.” June said that her daughters particularly liked the camp’s “theme days,” especially “fun hat” day, “fun hair” day, and “tie dye t-shirt making” day. “We’re already looking forward to next year’s summer camp,” she said. Summer camp is a unique situation during which kids engage in a community of peers and learn how to interact in a lessstructured environment than school. It’s an experience they never forget. According to information collected from camp applications, a majority of families served by the scholarship program fell within in the “extremely low income,” “very low income,” and “low income” brackets. The Gándara Center is looking to its business colleagues to step up to the plate to help the agency send even more children to camp this year. Simply put, Aventura! sponsors change young lives and help the community—their partnership truly makes a difference.
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