Well, after a two-week hiatus in Gallery Shop goings-on, the place is back to normal. I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you all more about what happened during the two weeks of Camp Imagine and post more pictures from the performance last Friday.
Before I get to the specifics, I'm going to take a minute to give you an overview of what our goals are for Camp Imagine students and what the application process is like for the students who wish to come to Camp Imagine.
First, applicants who wish to be considered for the camp must submit a letter/essay explaining why they want to come to camp. We do this for a couple reasons. The most important reason is that Camp Imagine is a full-day arts camp with two groups of 12 students starting at 9:15 and ending at 4:15. Students who come to camp without a genuine interest in participating unfortunately do not last long in the camp. They end up distracted and usually ruin the experience for other kids at the camp. Second, sometimes parents sign their children up for camps during the summer without actually asking the child. We want to prevent this from happening by establishing the interest of the child in our program. When the students write a letter of interest, it shows that they both know about the camp and that they have an interest in the arts.
One thing I love about this camp is how Terry decides the amount to charge for each student. She has a sliding scale, based on income that determines how much each student's guardians must pay. By simply providing a couple pay stubs, parents can send their children to a camp that normally costs $200 per week for about $40 per week. I really admire how the Alliance keeps aiming to fulfill its mission of developing community through the arts. Where else could you get such a high-quality experience for your kids for so cheap?
I don't mean to brag, but Camp Imagine is pretty darn awesome. During the last two weeks, I saw kids create some awesome art, sing a lot of beautiful songs, learn to dance some fierce dances and even do improvisation. Each day, the kids had a couple hours of art with either Rowena or Terry, dancing with Tania, theater with Stefanie, and singing with Molly.
I'm not sure if this is going to work, but here's a video of the performance of "Fireflies" by Owl City. The kids learned the song, and Tania taught them the dance. I won't lie, it brought a tear to my eye!
So you might be wondering--what did I do during all of this madness? Well, to be honest, a bit of everything. I mostly spent my time telling kids not to make holes in the wall, distributing afternoon snacks, and reminding campers to keep the art on the paper instead of themselves but I also got the rare opportunity to teach them how to tie dye!! I haven't tie dyed since I was in Girl Scouts ages ago so it was pretty fun! Here's a shot of the awesome shirts that another intern, Cassie, and I taught the students how to make:
Pretty neat, right? We had a lot of fun, but the credit really goes to the teachers, Terry, and the students. It was definitely a group effort to make this camp a success but it was totally worth all the hard work! I am almost certain that the students enjoyed themselves.
Here and there I was afforded the opportunity to work on the Chichester duPont grant, but this place was pretty much overtaken by munchkins by day one, making it a little tough to get things done.
However, now that everything's back to its normal, quiet, self, I've managed to actually finish the Chichester duPont grant request for $10,000. It sits waiting Terry's approval. I'm pretty excited about this one because it's a significant amount of money and I really hope that I've done a good job.
Also, I discovered that Macy's gives out district grants which is helpful as well! Their process is much easier and it's all done online which makes my job much less complicated.
Well! That's all for now. I shall leave you with a few more pictures of the cuteness that I was surrounded by for the last two weeks:
Oh yeah, one more thing--ALWAYS wear gloves when tie-dying!!!! :)
This is a shot of some of the younger group of kids doing the Rockin' Robin! Aren't they adorable? They were so excited!
And this is from the older kids' group--they did an improv tableau where they had three seconds to freeze after the teacher, Miss Stefanie, called out a theme. This was "A Day at the Beach":
Congratulations to all the awesome kids who worked so hard!
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