WILLIAMSPORT - Dave Fagerstrom, president/CEO of the River Valley Regional YMCA, finds himself in a familiar position this summer.
Working with the YMCA staff, he is leading the efforts to transform the YMCA's summer day camp into something more than it has traditionally been.
In the past, the majority of the YMCA's summer day camps have been held inside the Williamsport branch YMCA, schools, or other local venues such as churches. While these camps have provided a safe, fun and valuable service to working families, the YMCA feels it is time to make them much more.
The YMCA has the goal of offering "a resident camp type of experience in a day camp setting." What does this mean?
"It means that the YMCA has a real opportunity to make our summer day camp programs the best in our area," said Fagerstrom. "Our YMCA is going to offer our campers an experience that creates memories to last a lifetime, not just a child watch program for the summer."
The YMCA has arranged for three of its major summer day camps to be located in outdoor locations, including the Jersey Shore YMCA's day camp to be held at Little Pine State Park.
"These locations will allow our YMCA to provide the kids in our care experiences that they would never have been able to get in the past," said Fagerstrom. "We'll offer activities like canoeing, archery, fishing, outdoor education, trail blazing and a ton of other great activities that we were never able to provide in the past. I've never yet met the child who is staring out the school window in May wanting to get out of school so he could play indoors all summer long.
"Having our camps in the great outdoors is great for the camper's health, and lifts the kids' spirits all throughout the summer. The kids are absolutely going to love it."
Fagerstrom brings with him over 20 years of YMCA camping experience that will be used in offering never before given pre-camp staff training.
"It is really an exciting venture to lead the Y staff through," he said. "YMCA Summer Day camp is a very specific type of program. Our camp staff will go through a totally new pre-camp training that will instruct them on how to be successful. Much of the training has to do with understand that they are the key to a great camp through their implementation of behavior modification, group management, leadership skills, safety procedures, and character development. We will have a totally revamped summer day camp staff to go along with the new site and activities. It is going to make for a very special summer for all of our campers. This is all very exciting stuff.
"I have led this type of summer day camp transformation at two prior YMCAs in my career. The resulting feedback that we will get from campers and families will be as positive as it is dramatic," Fagerstrom continued. "The campers come to camp expecting the same old, same old and by the end of the first day they understand that the program is totally different. The parents, too, many of whom are apprehensive at first about the change, realize very quickly their children are having the time of their lives.
"At prior YMCAs that have made this transition, the camp's daily enrollment has just exploded, said Fagerstrom. "This in not because more kids were coming to camp who had never come before, but because the kids who are coming to camp just don't want to go anywhere else. Once the kids came and experienced camp, most just don't want to leave. I've gotten an earful from several parents over the years that our camps have kind of derailed their plans for their child regarding other activities due to this happening. Although I apologize profusely to the parent, I secretly say to myself, 'Geeze, we must be doing something really right.' I'm expecting the same results here at the YMCAs in Lycoming County."
For more information about the YMCA's new summer day camp program, go to www.rvrymca.org or call the Jersey Shore branch at 398-2150.
