| By David Miles Burkett CLEARWATER — The numbers alone impress: registration of 1,400 children,
a staff of 127 youth workers, eight full-time adult workers and a full-time
children’s ministries director.
Yet, Student Life Summer Camp at Heritage United Methodist Church
here makes more than an impression for hundreds of children.
For 12 years, the 2,200-member congregation has offered summertime
recreation and spiritual guidance to kids from the immediate area and, increasingly, to
commuters as advertising has given way to word of mouth.
The popularity of the ministry has led to the development of a
nine-week program that includes pre- and after-care from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for kids in
kindergarten through fifth grade, with baseball and music camps; Camp Heritage, with
classes, chapel, lunch and devotions; a vacation Bible school; and local missions camps
where children grow plants and take them to homebound persons and also work at local
outreach ministries.
Valoree McLean has been children’s ministries director at
Heritage for two years. She says the lion’s share of the work for summer goes into
pre-planning, especially for music camps. Eighty children ages 6 to 10 take part in a
polished musical comedy, with fourth- and fifth-graders in speaking and solo parts. This
year’s productions were “Sermon on the Mound,” a baseball show, and
“Two Kings, Schemes and Dreams,” about Daniel and the lions’ den. Children
are sent cassettes of the music and dialogue in advance, then rehearse during the week of
camp, along with working on sets, fliers, programs and regular religious classes. They
give a performance the Friday of camp week.
When McLean spoke to the Review about Heritage’s summer camps
she was regrouping after a week of baseball camp and gearing up for a final week of Camp
Heritage, expecting 270 eager kids to descend on the Heritage campus that next Monday
morning between 6 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.
“I’m feeling drained right now, but by the first of the
week, when staff is here and the kids are showing up, we’ll all be so excited we can
work off the energy they generate,” McLean said.
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Entire program is nine weeks: two weeks of . |
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music camps, two weeks of Camp Heritage, one vacation
Bible school, two weeks of local missions camps and two weeks of baseball camps |
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Draws mostly from community-at-large. Depends |
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now on word of mouth. Proven to be an effective
evangelism tool for Heritage. |
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Pay-for-service camping experiences: $70 a |
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week per child. |
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Volunteer student staff of 127. Students are given |
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gift certificates to local merchants for school
clothes, shoes, supplies and other items, instead of a salary. |
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Eight paid adult workers and one full-time |
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children’s ministries director. |
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Little demand for early-morning pre-care at 6 a.m. |
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Most kids arrive between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. and stay
until after 6 p.m. when parents pick them up after work. |
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Size of camps range from smallest and most |
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select (music) at 80 to largest (Camp Heritage) at 250
to 275.
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For further information about
Heritage’s summer camps, contact McLean at Heritage United Methodist Church,
727-796-1329. |
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