Objectives for camper development (Summer Program)

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Summer campers at Sound View are treated to a unique experience of education, exploration, recreation team building, and setting personal goals. Staff members are trained to work with campers to help each one intersect with the following objectives:

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  1. Connection to Christ – each camper will understand and/or experience – in at least one fresh, powerful, and personal way – the meaning of following Jesus Christ. This is experienced through morning worship, totem talks, and the Sound View Sojourner program.

  2. Setting Goals – each camper will set long and short term personal goals with the assistance of their cabin leader. The Sojourners program encourages campers to set different, more challenging themed goals during each new summer to earn a new neckerchief.

  3. Skills - each camper will be appropriately stretched to reach a new level of accomplishment in three specific programmatic areas.  Possible areas are challenge course,  aquatics, animal care, arts and crafts, music, athletics, drams, and woodworking.

  4. Stewardship (Earth Care) – each camper will be exposed to the Biblical principle of stewardship that he/she has been entrusted with by God. This realm includes his or her own mind, body, and impact on the natural environment. This may include learning about sustainable living, protecting natural resources, and caring for God’s plants and critters.

Sojourners

Sojourners is our tool to build character and encourage goal-setting for Sound View campers and staff. To sojourn means to stay for a time in a place - to live temporarily. While we strive to create a welcoming, but temporary community for just one week, it is a perfect time for each camper to grow.

Campers are inducted into the program the first day when the program is explained to them and they are given their first neckerchief (green). From that point, the campers can either choose to participate in the program or not. We do not mandate participation but encourage good camp citizenry regardless of their decision.

Campers create goals to achieve in their session that identifies with the next neckerchief color. Sponsored by their cabin leaders, they put into action their goals, and by the end of the week, if they have succeeded and exhibited good behavior, the campers will retire their previous neckerchief color and receive the new neckerchief.

Whether or not the camper participates, Sojourners is taken very seriously at camp, and campers not completing their goals or being disciplined for behavioral matters can be denied their neckerchief . However, the camper can always come back and try again.

GREEN - New Camper
RED - Doing and Learning
BLUE - Friendship
GOLD - Leadership
BLACK - Service
BROWN - Earth Care
PURPLE - Role Model
WHITE - Commitment to Christian Service