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Our campers have always known that Swift was a great place, thats why 70+ percent return year after year. You have always known Swift was a great camp now it’s official! This summer, as many of you know we had our inspection by the American Camp Association. The ACA sets over 300 standards for camps helping to ensure safety, staffing, programming, health care, food service, and more. Of the nearly 12,000 camps in the USA less than 25% have received the A.C.A. Accreditation. We are proud of the wonderful score we got. Making us one of the best camps around..but you knew that!
- By Kristen BourqueFamilies hike in Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge during a Jan. 29 trip organized by the Children's Heart Center.
Instead of an order for pills, pediatricians at the Children's Heart Center in Las Vegas have given Matias, his mother, who is diabetic, and his 9-year-old, 136-pound little brother, a "nature prescription."
More than 100 of the 553 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Refuges such as Moapa are part of a national consortium of federal parks and the National Environmental Education Foundation now using this prescription tactic. It's funded by a $75,000 grant to improve family health through a two-year pilot project linking the federal agencies with health care providers. The aim is to turn doctors, nurses, teachers and therapists into "nature champions" who steer children and their parents into the outdoors.
It's a whole lot more than just saying, "take a hike."
The prescription, an "Rx for healthy living," prompts families to eat more fruits and vegetables, step away from the TV or video screen and go outside to breathe fresh air, awaken their senses, and shed some weight.
Using the prescription format gives the psychological oomph of doctor's orders to simple suggestions for diet and workouts disguised as nature walks. Each prescription comes with easy-to-follow maps to nearby refuges and parks where outdoor experiences are led by rangers and volunteers.
'Phenomenal difference'
Matias, once unwilling to play outside, has already lost 10 pounds since joining the fledgling program this winter, says his mother, Ma De Lourdez Perez Mata, 44. He now looks forward to the walks — and so does she.
Perez Mata says, "It's so beautiful, and you learn about nature. It's been so long that I breathed fresh air and so long since I've hiked and been surrounded by nature. The rangers tell you about life in these places, their history. It's very interesting."
Since December, the Children's Heart Center in Las Vegas, has already organized three field trips to nearby desert refuges with about 100 participants such as Matias and his family, says Angelina Yost, visitor services manager for the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes Moapa.
They hiked up a little hill "that definitely gets your heart racing" and visited a viewing chamber carved into the desert floor that let them get face-to-fin with an endangered fish, the Moapa Dace, Yost says.
The initiative began last September with a national training program where nearly three dozen health professionals from 11 states met at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, to be schooled in the value of nature prescriptions.
Dubbed "nature champions," they were charged to each train 30 more advocates. One was pediatrician Noah Kohn, medical director for Clinics in Schools, the free medical clinics funded by private donors and the United Wayof Southern Nevada. He sees this as a smart new tool to combat complex problems:
"We have a very significant obesity problem. Ninety percent of my patients have no health insurance. These are low income families with few resources. It's hard enough to convince them to eat a vegetable. And they don't live in neighborhoods where there is a safe place to go out and play.
"A prescription makes a phenomenal difference. It says, 'Rx for healthy and active outdoor living.' Once you get kids outdoors, away from the inner city, they are just completely bamboozled by the science and the natural world and they never think they are exercising," says Kohn, who will start sending out prescriptions as soon at the Spanish translations are available.
Multiple benefits
Susan Morse, a spokeswoman for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says each region is taking its own approach to the prescription program.
In Santa Clara, Calif, Kaiser Permanente clinic pediatrician Charles Owyang has already written 67 prescriptions to the Don Edwards Preserve, an urban nature enclave in the San Francisco Bay Area. Owyang also teaches other doctors about studies that show outdoor activities have intellectual and emotional benefits, too — brightening kids' moods, sharpening their concentration and cutting down on stress.
In New Jersey, a nature champion connected health care provider AtlantiCare with a network of home schooling parents to begin forming "Family Nature Clubs" that meet every second Saturday for a walk in the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge that weaves exercise and education.
"The days when Mom could send you out the front door to play have changed," says Sandy Perchetti, volunteer coordinator, at Forsythe, 15 minutes from Atlantic City.
"Once the children come with their 'prescriptions' we stamp them and give them an incentive like a nature journal or a pedometer to track their walking," says Perchetti.
The national project includes tracking whether families visit the refuges and parks, their physical progress and whether they came back again.
The answer is in for Matias and his family. They've already been back to Moapa.
Contributing: Marisol Bello
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Marking the 150th Anniversary of Organized Camp in the United States
Hon. Chellie Pingree of Maine
In the House of Representatives
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Ms. Pingree of Maine. Mr. Speaker, this summer marked the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of organized camp in the United States. Summer camps throughout the nation provide valuable educational experiences and offer the chance for youth from many different backgrounds to connect to the outdoors, enhance their mental, physical, spiritual, and social development; make new friends; and learn life-long skills. In the summer of 1861, William Frederick Gunn and his wife Abigail organized the first summer camp in America by taking a group of kids into the wilderness along the Long Island Sound for two weeks. Since then, thousands of camps have been founded, and 150 years later there are over 12,000 summer camps nationwide. While times have changed, the purpose of summer camp has remained the same – to provide our youth with havens in which to grow and learn in nature.
In the state of Maine, we have nearly 200 camps — most of which are accredited by the American Camp Association — including sleep-away camps, day camps, co-ed camps, boys–only and girls-only camps, and specialty camps. More than 18 of those have been operating for more than 100 years. In 1902, Wyonegonic Camps in Denmark, Maine opened its doors to girls and, today, remains the oldest continuously operating camp for girls in the nation. Girls’ camps have and continue to play a pivotal role in young women’s lives — providing settings in which they can grow confidence and develop can-do attitudes. In the same year, Pine Island Camp for boys opened in Belgrade Lakes, Maine and remains the oldest continuously operating camp for boys in the state. In 1908, two camps were opened by non-profit agencies in Maine: West End House Camp in East Parsonfield and Camp Jordan YMCA in Ellsworth.
Camps in Maine and throughout the nation reflect a unique American attitude towards the outdoors and towards the value of natural settings in the education of our youth. Camps are special places where kids get a chance to re-create themselves, develop independence, be physically active, and learn new skills outside of the traditional school setting. And, through exposure to new experiences, friendships with kids from other states and around the globe, campers gain perspectives on their own lives that augment their education during the school year. Camps are also a place to build lasting friendships — a home away from home where the camp community becomes a second family. In a fast changing world, summer camps continue to be a mainstay of American society — providing youth a time for quiet reflection away from the pace of day-to-day modernity. As millions of summer campers head back to start another year of school, let’s remember the valuable role that summer camps play in the year-round education of children.
Take the time to inform yourself about the wide range of options available to choose from. It takes time, but it makes sense to gather camp information prior to sending your kids somewhere. One of the most surprising things you will find out is that there are so many different types of camps. There are overnight camps and day camps of every duration from one to two weeks to one to two months. Camps can also be categorized according to the age ranges and genders of the participants they accept and how they conduct their programs for the campers they have. There are coed camps where boys and girls get to mingle . There are camps exclusive to girls or boys. Then there are brother/sister camps where boys and girls attend the neighboring camps with selective interaction. Camps can either be categorized by an area of particular focus such as general, academic, religious, special needs, and activity or theme specialty, to name a few.
Ask your child what he or she wants to get out of the experience. More than anything else, the [aim | goal] of a summer camp is to let the kids have fun while at the same time instilling valuable life lessons. To ensure that your kid will get the best experience possible, you need to fit what they want to do with what activities a camp offers. This will enable you to shorten your list of camps to those that offer the features they will enjoy the most.
Determine your budget carefully. The cost of sending your kids to camp can vary depending on the camp's duration, programs, activities and location. Day camps can be very modestly priced and full season sleepaway camps offer expanded experience at an expanded price. When you are determining your budget for summer camp, remember that your kids will not be in the house during that time, and consider how much you'll save in terms of household expenses. Be sure to check pricing carefully, contacting the director if necessary. Many camp directors are willing to work with parents or have special programs to allow for children from lower income families to attend camp.
Visit the summer camp when you are close to making your choice for it. Once you have shortened your list using the [aforementioned | preceding] guidelines, you and your child should take time to [go to | visit] the camp or camps you're considering. This is important since doing so will definitely help you in determining that a camp is really the right fit for your kid. Take a tour of the camp; take note of its condition, facilities, and how safe the place is. But the essence of every camp is the people who are there. Make sure to talk to the camp director and staff members too, if possible. You'll get to know the camp better, as a place well worth entrusting your child to.
To learn more about summer camps and finding the best one for your child.
However, as parents know, chronological age is never a definitive marker. Some children are more than ready at six or seven, especially those who have an older sibling at camp, while some eight year olds still need a year or two before they are ready to handle the separation of a sleepaway camp experience. Three guidelines can help you to consider your childs readiness:
1) Has your child enjoyed other overnight experiences?
Many children eagerly sleep over at friends or grandparents homes, a sign of readiness. When a child is successful spending the night away, it’s a sign that he or she can function independently. However, if you’ve gotten middle of the night calls and had to pick your child up in the middle of an overnight stay, its an indication that he or she is not quite ready for overnight camp.
2) Has your child had other camp experiences?
It’s helpful if a child has attended day camp prior to going to sleepaway camp. At a day camp, children learn to move from one activity to the next, make new friends, and develop teamwork skills.
3) Is your child adaptable?
Going to overnight camp requires some flexibility, an ability to adjust to new situations, and a willingness to try new things. Though all children experience some period of adjustment, camp adjustment will be more difficult for the child who is fairly rigid and has difficulty in new situations.
Generally speaking if by 11 or 12 your child is still reluctant to go to camp, the time might come to give some gentle persuasion and insist that they go. Then encourage and guide to help make this transition easier for them.
As parents we have to remember that as much as we love our children our goal is to prepare them to leave the home and be a productive part of society. Summer Camp is a basic part of the growth process. Try it this summer.
This cult we call summer camp has its positive impact soon children forget about the cliques at school, their concerns about grades, and what their friends are doing and wearing.Summer Camp will replace these things with campfires, caring for others, singing in the dining hall, trying new things and increase their growth as a paddler, a rider, a gymnast, and a climber. Even more, they will be replaced by a community of friends
Okay So you don’t buy it! You need to be in touch with your child. You know you are a helicopter parent. No need to fret.? There are a huge variety in the ways different camps help parents and campers stay in touch. Some camps allow campers to carry cell phones, some allow access to email. Many camps have visiting days. Every camp is different so be sure you ask the director how communication happens before you enroll in camp. This may also be a growing time for you ... getting you ready for those not to far off college days
Do you love SNC? Are you looking for a wonderful summer camp?
Then go to CampRatingz and read what campers and parents are saying about their summer camp experience. This is a great resource to help parents decide which camp best meets the needs of their child.
If you are an SNC alumni please help others learn how wonderful your experience was this summer at Swift Nature Camp. This satisfaction survey allows parents and campers to give their input about camp. This survey currently ranks SNC as the 26 best camp in America. But I think we can be better! We encourage all to participate! Please click here Best Camps then click “Rate this Camp”
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Experts tell us the first step in becoming an environmentalist is noticing what nature offers. Such observation often leads to a desire and commitment to conserve and protect the natural world.
However, with out having a purpose many times staff and campers merely walk along the trail without really noticing what is around them. They overlook the sounds, sights, textures and diversity of the ecosystem.
Please read these simple programs that can be done while walking through the woods. You may need suppliesbut it will take only a few minutes to get them.
One you feel you have a feel for these activities invite your childrens friends to come along, I'm sure they too will enjoy being away from their scheduled lives and enjoy the peace of nature,
Look Down
Supplies: Yarn and scissors
Ahead of time: Cut the yarn into 15-inch pieces, have one for every two campers.
Assignment: Move off the trail, and make a square on the ground with the yarn. Study what you find within the square. What lives there? What is the soil like? What grows there? Use a stick and dig into the ground a little. What do you see?
Conversation: What did you find in the square or circle that surprised you?
Changes
Supplies: Clipboard and writing utensils
Ahead of time: think or research how things would be different if the land was developed
Assignment: Stop along the trail and look into the woods. Imagine that the land had sold this plot of land to a developer to build. How would that development changethings? What effect would it have on the habitat and food supplies of the animals living there? What would happen to the soil if the trees were cut down? How would the plants in the woods change? How would the threat of erosion increase?
Conversation: How have ecosystems near your home been destroyed? What changes have happened to the land?
Look a Tree
Supplies: Blindfolds
|Ahead of time: look for a place on the trail where there is a variety of trees.
Assignment: Find a partner and decide who will be blindfolded first. The sighted partner will lead his/her partner to a tree. The blindfolded child will explore the tree by touch and smell. Then the sighted partner leads his/her partner away from the tree. Once the blindfold is removed, that camper tries to locate the tree. Switch places and repeat.
Conversation: What have you learned about trees that you didn't know before?
Swift Nature Camp hopes this information give you few a simple projects we do at our camp out in Nature. If you child is interested in these sorts of activities Please look at our website and see if we might be part of your summer plans,
If this is your first time thinking about Summer Camp look at Summer Camp Advice a free website that helps parents fing the right camp for thier child.
About the authors: Jeff and Lonnie Lorenz are the directors of Swift Nature Camp, a non-competitive, traditional overnight Animal Summer Camp. Boys and Girls Ages 6-15 enjoy nature & animals along with traditional camping activities. As a Summer Kids CampSwift specializes in programs for the First Time Campers as well as Adventure Teen Camp programs
Swift Nature Camp, is a |
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Visit: Nature Summer Camp
- By Kristen BourqueFamilies hike in Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge during a Jan. 29 trip organized by the Children's Heart Center.
Instead of an order for pills, pediatricians at the Children's Heart Center in Las Vegas have given Matias, his mother, who is diabetic, and his 9-year-old, 136-pound little brother, a "nature prescription."
More than 100 of the 553 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Refuges such as Moapa are part of a national consortium of federal parks and the National Environmental Education Foundation now using this prescription tactic. It's funded by a $75,000 grant to improve family health through a two-year pilot project linking the federal agencies with health care providers. The aim is to turn doctors, nurses, teachers and therapists into "nature champions" who steer children and their parents into the outdoors.
It's a whole lot more than just saying, "take a hike."
The prescription, an "Rx for healthy living," prompts families to eat more fruits and vegetables, step away from the TV or video screen and go outside to breathe fresh air, awaken their senses, and shed some weight.
Using the prescription format gives the psychological oomph of doctor's orders to simple suggestions for diet and workouts disguised as nature walks. Each prescription comes with easy-to-follow maps to nearby refuges and parks where outdoor experiences are led by rangers and volunteers.
'Phenomenal difference'
Matias, once unwilling to play outside, has already lost 10 pounds since joining the fledgling program this winter, says his mother, Ma De Lourdez Perez Mata, 44. He now looks forward to the walks — and so does she.
Perez Mata says, "It's so beautiful, and you learn about nature. It's been so long that I breathed fresh air and so long since I've hiked and been surrounded by nature. The rangers tell you about life in these places, their history. It's very interesting."
Since December, the Children's Heart Center in Las Vegas, has already organized three field trips to nearby desert refuges with about 100 participants such as Matias and his family, says Angelina Yost, visitor services manager for the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes Moapa.
They hiked up a little hill "that definitely gets your heart racing" and visited a viewing chamber carved into the desert floor that let them get face-to-fin with an endangered fish, the Moapa Dace, Yost says.
The initiative began last September with a national training program where nearly three dozen health professionals from 11 states met at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, to be schooled in the value of nature prescriptions.
Dubbed "nature champions," they were charged to each train 30 more advocates. One was pediatrician Noah Kohn, medical director for Clinics in Schools, the free medical clinics funded by private donors and the United Wayof Southern Nevada. He sees this as a smart new tool to combat complex problems:
"We have a very significant obesity problem. Ninety percent of my patients have no health insurance. These are low income families with few resources. It's hard enough to convince them to eat a vegetable. And they don't live in neighborhoods where there is a safe place to go out and play.
"A prescription makes a phenomenal difference. It says, 'Rx for healthy and active outdoor living.' Once you get kids outdoors, away from the inner city, they are just completely bamboozled by the science and the natural world and they never think they are exercising," says Kohn, who will start sending out prescriptions as soon at the Spanish translations are available.
Multiple benefits
Susan Morse, a spokeswoman for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says each region is taking its own approach to the prescription program.
In Santa Clara, Calif, Kaiser Permanente clinic pediatrician Charles Owyang has already written 67 prescriptions to the Don Edwards Preserve, an urban nature enclave in the San Francisco Bay Area. Owyang also teaches other doctors about studies that show outdoor activities have intellectual and emotional benefits, too — brightening kids' moods, sharpening their concentration and cutting down on stress.
In New Jersey, a nature champion connected health care provider AtlantiCare with a network of home schooling parents to begin forming "Family Nature Clubs" that meet every second Saturday for a walk in the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge that weaves exercise and education.
"The days when Mom could send you out the front door to play have changed," says Sandy Perchetti, volunteer coordinator, at Forsythe, 15 minutes from Atlantic City.
"Once the children come with their 'prescriptions' we stamp them and give them an incentive like a nature journal or a pedometer to track their walking," says Perchetti.
The national project includes tracking whether families visit the refuges and parks, their physical progress and whether they came back again.
The answer is in for Matias and his family. They've already been back to Moapa.
Contributing: Marisol Bello
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.