Photograph by Douglas Rider
Leilani Cachola, 11, paints as mask as part of City Year's Spring Camp at the Columbia Neighborhood Center. The camp is held during spring break and offers a number of activities for middle school kids including mask making, games and sports.
Students spend spring break at free day camp
By Amy Jenkins
More than 100 middle school students from throughout Sunnyvale enjoyed a week of activities during spring break, as part of a free spring break camp held at the Columbia Neighborhood Center and hosted by City Year.
On April 15 through 19, students spent an average of 55 minutes at one activity then rotated to another activity throughout the day that started at 9 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. While last year the camp was offered only to Columbia Middle School students and only 50 students participated, this year the camp has expanded to include students from all Sunnyvale middle schools, according to event coordinator and City Year corps member Paradon Munro.
"This year we knew other Sunnyvale schools were on break and wanted to include them too," Munro says.
The first day of camp, a group of students gathered in a large circle in the gym of Columbia Middle School while they engaged in improvisational games. The Red Ladder Theater Production Group, an improvisational outreach company with the San Jose Repertory Theater led the students in various games.
A series of games were played like charades, where a student acted out an imaginary object while other students had to guess object. Among the interesting objects they acted out were cell phones, cereal, jump rope, a baby, glasses, a camera and a basketball.
"We try to build positive life skills through improv and activities," says Red Ladder associate director Karen Alltree Piemme, who also trains the City Year staff in improvisational activities for their program.
Munro says he feels these activities "bring out the imaginative and artistic side of the kids."
In a nearby classroom, seventh grader at Columbia Middle School Paula Mercado and her friends played a game of Monopoly. She says her favorite part of the camp is the morning exercise.
Since the theme of the camp was "around the world in five days," and April 15 was Africa day, Mercado's team walked like Egyptians during the morning exercise routine. On Asia day, April 16, students got a lesson in martial arts, on Latin America day, April 17, they made piñatas and had a fiesta and on April 19, the final day students competed in athletics like they would in the Olympics.
But that's not all. They also went to a San Jose Giant's baseball game, worked in arts and crafts, learned sign language, planted trees and were entertained by a disc jockey from radio station Wild 94.9, who played music for the aforementioned fiesta.
Despite all those activities, eighth grader from Sunnyvale Middle School, Michael Sutherland says his favorite part was the free food. He adds he enjoyed the donated Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Papa John's pizza.
Other restaurants and stores that donated or reduced food prices were Burger King, Le Boulanger, Hobees and Trader Joe's. Officers from the Sunnyvale Public Safety office even held a barbecue on the final day.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
