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My name is Kristen Bowen. I am the director here at Camp Linden.
I am involved with Camp Linden because of the kids.
They love coming out here, experiencing the garden and the pool, going on all the walking
trails, learning about animals.
Hi, good afternoon. I'm Pat Dawley, I'm the social services coordinator for Haddington
town houses, and we've been fortunate enough to be able to bring the kids out here every
Tuesday for six weeks. It gives them the opportunity to learn about
nature, and to see that, you know you grow cucumbers and you make pickles out of them
instead of the kids thinking that pickles grow inside of a jar.
The program for the kids enhances their learning experience. They often times have not been
out of the country to experience a lot of the trees, the forests, the animals, the bugs,
which was interesting. Today we did a creek walk. We started out
on a rock trail onto the creek. The kids got to go in if they were brave enough. There's
some fish, some wildlife down there, some snails.
Teaching kids how to skip rocks, so, it was pretty cool. We are also building a giant
caterpillar. Each child gets a circle where they get to write their name and any sort
of design that they want, and we made a huge caterpillar head, and they're hanging up each
child's circle. So in years to come they can come back and
find their name.
At the Camp Linden pool, the students get to have a swim lesson every day that they
get here. The lessons include going under water. You would be surprised how many kids
don't even want to put their eyes under the water, so just getting them to do that by
the end of the year is an accomplishment.
Out of 40 kids, not one of them has said that they don't want to come back. This is a wonderful
experience for inner city youth.
We need everyone's support at Camp Linden to keep this place going. The kids absolutely
love it. My staff and I absolutely love it.It's a wonderful experience for everyone involved
and we would really like to keep it going so that we can keep the education going.
The growth has been immeasurable with the children. They love it, they're excited to
come out here. It's an adventure for them also, as well as a learning experience. People
need to come and see and look at the phenomenal job that you guys do here. I can't thank you
enough.