Monday of OPC

" Kids serve too!"

This week is OPC week Operation Purple Camp. Once again this year we’ve transformed camp into Operation Purple McGregor and around 65 kids from military families have joined us here on the island for a week of activities campfires and games.

The theme of Operation Purple is "kids serve too" and yesterday at our campfire camp director Natalie introduced this theme to an enthusiastic group of campers. "What does it mean to serve as a kid in a military family?" Natalie asked. Hands slowly started going up around the fire. "That we represent our parents by being here" said the first camper called upon. "It means that we can help serve our country by helping when our parents are gone" said another.

More campers were called upon and thoughtful answers continued to be offered.

A big part of OPC is exactly what these campers brought up: sacrifices made by military families are acts of service for our country. In addition to appreciating this service here at OPC this week we’ll be continuing to build community around this particular type of service. Kids will be encouraged to consider the similarities of their situations and to join together in appreciating the ways in which their parents siblings and friends here at OPC are helping to serve our country.

Leave no trace…

Just after breakfast we all headed down to the Sunset Beach area (on the farthest point west on the island). There we talked about all of the exciting things that we were looking forward to raised the flag and said the pledge of allegiance. Afterwards we all headed down to the Friendship Circle for a presentation on the principles of "Leave No Trace."

"Leave No Trace" is a project of the Center for Outdoor Ethics (and can be found here: http://www.lnt.org/) and attempts to provide basic ways in which human beings can minimize their harmful impact on the environment and promote responsible stewardship practices. After a short presentation of the principles (and an explanation by Shayla one of our program directors) program directors Shayla and Paul illustrated these principles with a skit. The campers helped Paul (who seemed fairly oblivious to the principles) by shouting out helpful hints whenever Paul made poor stewardship decisions. The activity ended with a splash when Paul who hadn’t accounted for rain and was missing his poncho experienced an isolated downpour (thanks to Shayla and a bucket of water).

Afternoon activities…

This afternoon after lunch we’ll jump  into regular activities. First round we’ll have throwing fishing newspaper art boating and swimming. Later we’ll have dance drama drumline and more.

Now we’re making flags and thinking up cabin cheers then it’s lunch.

Stay tuned for updates!

"I love how every night we do devotions. And Sunset beach is the best place to hang out, and our cabins are very awesome too!!! Sweeney is very fun. We always have the dance party there, which is my favorite thing. They always have fun activities and we always like doing them." - Isabel

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