The World's at Large: Camp Superkids

Last year when I was working for Valley Health as a student, I had the opportunity to be a counselor with Camp Superkids. My CI (clinical instructor), Rob, has been involved with the camp for asthmatic children for many years. They say, once you are in the camp, you are in for life. So I knew I wanted to do it again this year. My boss did not know whether she would be able to give me the time off for 3 days but when she checked the census, I got a call the Monday morning of camp and I was off to hang with the kids!

The beautiful Hunting Ridge Retreat housed 44 campers between the ages of 6-12. Ages 7 and below were "day campers" and everyone else stayed overnight. The theme of camp was the Olympics and there were activities planned for the kids throughout the day including crafts, games and education about their asthma. The kids were divided into 4 teams. I was a counselor for the "Phlegmstralians" from Phlegmstralia There were also the "Lungada's," the "weezelands" and the "coughzakastanians." During each activity, kids competed for medals for winning activities such as gymnastics, archery, soccer, dart blowing, shot put, and discus as well as metals for being helpful and being good sportsman.

On the last day, there is a parent dinner where the parents pick up their kids and there is a catered dinner and each team is responsible for a song representing their country. My team did "phlemstralians" to the tune of "Ice Ice Baby." It went something like "phlegm phlegm stralians....we're from phlegm phlegm stralia..." I won't bore you with the rest of the lyrics. Basically, the kids performing was one of my proudest moments. We had a choreographed dance routine including the running man and actual dance steps from the video but when the kids got up there some of them got so nervous they forgot to dance. It was so much fun to get the kids excited and feel comfortable in their own skins doing something so silly. The parents and other counselors and campers loved it.

I had so much fun with the kids and now I am even more excited about Adventure Amputee Camp in a couple weeks.