It’s talent show season and Team Five, a group of 10- to 12-year-old day campers, take the gymnasium floor by storm.
The upbeat melody “Nine in the Afternoon” by rock band Panic! At the Disco, pounds through the speakers and the youths deliver a dance performance they have been practicing for weeks.
Family members and peers who have came to watch their end-of-camp show line the clean and well maintained gymnasium.
On the sidelines are the proud camp counselors who helped organize and choreograph the show.
The youths look confidently to their teenage mentors for guidance, support and encouragement.
This is Camp Wesley, a summer program offered by Wesley Health and Wellness Center’s Family Wellness Program located on the South Side of San Antonio. The program offers a free summer camp for 200 youths ages 6-18 during the months of June and July.
Here, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, predominantly Hispanic and low-income youths participate in arts and crafts, fitness activities, field trips and receive free breakfast and lunch.
Not only are youth campers having fun and staying connected to their friends throughout the summer, but camp organizers say kids are reaping the benefits of personal developmental and gaining skills in leadership, independence, social comfort, confidence and self-esteem.
That’s in part to Camp Wesley’s unique counselor and mentoring program which exists through a school partnership with Harlandale ISD. Student volunteers ages 16-18 can apply to be counselors at Camp Wesley during the summer. If accepted, the students assist Wesley’s professional staff members and supervise approximately ten campers. They design activities and sometimes, lend a listening ear.
Teen Impact
Teenagers who have dedicated their summer to community youths — it’s not a new concept. But it’s often an overlooked and inexpensive way for summer camps to create a support system that meets the physical, mental and emotional needs of low-income urban youth.
“During the summer, every family faces the challenge or the question of what to do with their kids to make sure that they are okay, that they are learning, and that they aren’t bored at home,” says Arlynn Ellis, Family Wellness Programs and Facilities Manager of the WHWC.
With programs like Camp Wesley, parents are comforted by the community partnerships that bring trained teen volunteers together with elementary-age students.
Camp supervisor Mark Brooks, who oversees a team of camp counselors, says, “I see [counselors] wanting to better their lives and more of them are looking forward to college. They take their job seriously; they really want to improve themselves.”
That can make all the difference for kids like Steven Yglecias, 11, who has returned to Camp Wesley a second time and says he is happy to be around his friends and the counselors.
Yglecias says he prefers to have the students as camp counselors because they are closer to his age and easier to relate to.
“I do look up to them,” Yglecias admits.
In order to participate, Harlandale students have to be in good academic standing, get CPR certified, have background screenings and interview with a staff member. Students who participate are provided a $2,000 stipend at the end of the summer, funded by Methodist Healthcare Ministries.
Ellis says the teens are able to obtain work experience, professional and personal development, and stay active and connected during the summer.
“A lot of them have not had a job anywhere else and it’s kind of hard to find a job if you’ve never had any experience,” she says. “We do an initial training and then we train them throughout.”
Ellis says that their counselor program sets high expectations and models what the workplace will expect of them.
Training received by high school students, organizers say, is likely to trickle down to younger campers.
“Everything that the kids learn, they take it home. Whether it’s nutrition or fitness-related, fun-related, whether it’s a field trip and they learn of a new location, and say ‘mom, there’s this new museum we can go to, I actually liked it’ you know, that kind of thing. So the family gets exposed to new things and it promotes not only that wellness aspect but that family connection,” Ellis explains.
Family Rewards
This is the second summer that recent high school graduate Ericka Triana, 18, has decided to spend her summer as a counselor at Camp Wesley. She had a great experience, she says, and would rather work at the camp where she can gain skills useful to her future as a teacher, than work somewhere else she didn’t enjoy.
“The learning experience has been the most rewarding, working with the youth. I really enjoy it,” Triana says.
Parents can also benefit from the partnership by being assured that their teen is spending the summer productively, gaining personal skills, and keeping out of trouble that arises from idle behavior.
According to the American Camp Association, 70 percent of parents said that their child gained self-confidence at camp and 92 percent of campers agreed that people at camp helped them feel good about who they were.
And a 1995 study by the Search Institute found that adolescents that volunteer just one hour or more a week are 50 percent are less likely to abuse alcohol, cigarettes, become pregnant, or engage in other destructive behavior.
Mark Martinez, 19, admits with a chuckle that if he weren’t a counselor at Camp Wesley this year, he’d probably “be at home sleeping.”
Instead, Martinez has been dedicated his summers to Camp Wesley for years. Like others, he began coming to the camp when he was younger, and when he was 16 he started volunteering as a camp counselor.
“It’s nice to see them grow .… to seem them when they’re little, then being able to work here,” says Erica Duncan, a coordinator at Camp Wesley.
For the youngest community members, the relationships and positive benefits are just beginning. Andrew Martinez, a shy 9-year-old Columbia Heights Elementary student, is a newcomer to Camp Wesley this year and said he “met many new friends.”
Perhaps one of the biggest benefits the teens reap from volunteering at Camp Wesley is the bonds and connections they establish with the younger kids in the South Side community.
“I enjoy being able to be a role model. They look up to you, and what you do, they follow,” Martinez says.
Back in the gymnasium, Team 5 concludes its performance. Applause erupts. The campers retreat back together into a huddle formation with their camp counselors close behind. The counselors joins the campers’ huddle and their shoulders are linked together, as they were the summer before and will again next June.
