And the fun continues...

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone had a great holiday yesterday! It was such a tease being off for one day and I'm already wishing it was the weekend.

I've been really busy here at St. Lawrence Place. We've been going on trips daily like usual, but I've been trying to keep myself busy doing more research and office work as well. I've been trying to find fun things to take the kids to and have them participate in, and it's been pretty successful so far. One of the things I've been working on is getting us registered with the organization called First Book that Madison hooked me up with. It's an organization that gives free and very reduced priced books to organizations that have at least 70% of the population they serve in poverty. Pretty much how it works is you have to apply everytime they have new books available and then they contact you if you are awarded the books. All you have to pay is the shipping, so it's an awesome deal. You can request up to 3 books in each age group at a time, but as many copies as you would like. I think this will be great for the kids here at SLP. I'm thinking abour having them read the book, and then do some sort of creative activity about their interpretation of the book. I hope we are awarded the books because I'm super excited about it!

Another thing I've been doing is looking at things for the kids to do with the Richland County Public Library. I've been using the material that Madison gave me to find cool stuff that I think the kids would like. I've been focusing on cultural stuff that's different that they might not get to experience elsewhere. I've signed us up for PigSkin Poets, which is where members of the USC football team come and read to the kids and then sign autographs. This one isn't super cultural or anything, but I know they'll love it. The older kids went and toured Williams-Brice today and loved it, so I know they'll be excited to meet the  players. One that I'm really excited about is called In Your Dreams. Members of different Native American tribes are speaking and sharing about their cultures, and then the kids get to make their own dream catchers. I think that this is going to be really good for them and hopefully they'll take something away from it. A few others that I'm looking into are an Origami class, some basic Spanish classes, and an interactive presentation from the SC Aquarium. It's difficult trying to schedule these because a lot of the schedule is already set in stone, but I'm doing what I can to make sure that the kids have a lot of good memories here at camp!

I can't believe we're over half way done with the summer already. It's really a bittersweet feeling at this point. I'm glad to be starting school again soon and getting into my Upper Division Nursing classes, but I know I'm going to miss the kids like crazy. I hope these next few weeks go by quickly enough not to drag on, but not so quick that they're gone before I know it.