Throughout the school year, RAPRD offers its Adventure Quest program, before- and after-school enrichment program for children Grades K-5 at five elementary schools, where staff and volunteers lead organized activities, and arts and crafts projects. The program operates Monday through Friday and during Winter and Spring breaks so that parents can drop their kids off and be assured they will have the attention and support they need. Staff offers a homework reading period every day. “It really helps the parents,” says Brandy Princehorn, Assistant Recreation Coordinator, “We know they have had a really long day, some kids are with us until 6:30.” Princehorn is a mother of three herself, and can sympathize. “You have to go home and make dinner and the do the bedtime routine. So we offer 20-30 minutes of homework time to give parents that extra help.” Parents recognize the added value of such engaged staff. Program participation has exploded, from 6 students per day in 2007 to nearly 80 students per day in 2016. The program has spread out over five school sites in Redmond and Terrebonne.
Every summer, all those kids, from around the Redmond area, come together for Camp Adventure Quest. Formerly Summer in the Park, for years, the program was based solely outside, in Redmond’s many community parks. However, while active time outside is a major draw for the format, the program runs from 6:30am to 6:00pm, and some parents were hesitant to have their kids outside for the whole day. The campers were at the mercy of the Central Oregon weather, and competed for park space with Music in the Canyon, and teenagers hanging out on summer break, who weren’t the best role models.
That all changed last year when Vern Patrick granted Camp Adventure Quest the use of two modular classrooms for the whole summer. They finally had a base of operations (with air conditioning!) where the campers could cool off and securely leave their stuff, and do arts and crafts without worrying about the wind and rain sweeping their projects away. The leaders set up a rotation between the two classrooms and the outside space. In line with their themes for each week, they had crafts and games in each of the rooms, and field games outside. On bad weather days, they had a protected space to move all the kids inside.
However, on those days and times with all 60 campers inside, it became obvious just how small two modular classrooms can feel, when filled with active kids. Princehorn recalls, “That small space changed everything for the better. It let us offer more because we had three spaces to use instead of one [outside park space, as in previous years]. But we couldn’t grow in there. The goal is to keep growing.”
Princehorn was able to draw on the program’s good reputation in area schools when she approached the Redmond Early Learning Center to ask for space for this summer. “The schools love to use their space to reach out to the community and help families, so they benefit from our program as well.” At RELC, the program will have access to the school’s cafeteria, gym, and the large stage/backstage space, which they will use as a classroom and activity room. RELC is centrally located to a number of area parks, so Camp Adventure Quest not only has access to the school’s outdoor fields and playground, but will continue its tradition of hiking with the kids to different parks each day. The Centennial Splash Park, and Cascade Swim Center, will become a regular part of their week again. “These kids benefit from being outside,” Princehorn says, “We want them to enjoy all of our parks. That’s what we are, we’re parks and rec. We want to get our kids out to enjoy all that we have, not just the one space.”
Camp Adventure Quest still meets many of the needs that Adventure Quest addresses during the school year. Each week has a theme like “Stars and Stripes,” “Nature Gone Wild,” or “Jurassic Park,” that guides the crafts, games, and learning activities. A librarian visits regularly to read to the kids and leave a rotating bin of library books and, on excursions to the library, and leaders help participants get library cards, and check out, and return books. In the new cafeteria space at RELC, the school’s Nutrition Services will provide breakfast and lunch to school district nutrition standards each day, which Camp Adventure Quest supplements with morning and afternoon snacks. “Kids will choose sugar over anything else and that doesn’t give them the fuel they need for the rest of the day so I’ve been trying to incorporate a lot more fruits and high protein snacks,” Princehorn notes. “We run their energy out,” she says. “They eat fairly often because they are playing all the time.”
Like Adventure Quest, Camp Adventure Quest features crafts and stations on coordinated themes each week. For Nature Gone Wild week, for example, participants hike to the local parks, picking up natural materials to make their crafts (bird feeders out of pinecones, porcupine characters out of pine cones and pine needles, rock pets to paint later, etc.). Incorporated into the fun of collecting and creating is learning about the weather and the seasons, why some trees change and some don’t. “We’re helping them learn to observe what’s around them,” Princehorn says. Stations include fun projects like making characters out of paper bags or toilet paper rolls, but also trivia, board games, and activities like cooking (no-bake cookies, English muffin pizzas, etc.) to let kids be creative while learning life skills.
“We are different than a day care,” Princehorn observes, “because our job is not just to watch them. We are in it with them. We do all the activities with them, and we use ourselves as a reward.” She recalls when the kids got to draw beards and mustaches on the staff, or pie them in the face at the end of the summer. “We are more like an older brother or sister, or an aunt. Them seeing us do stuff, rooting for us, competing against us in field games, just seeing us be silly; there is something about being outside and being active with them that builds those relationships. We build that trust with them so they want to come back each year.”
That trust and familiarity pays big dividends. “We have had some kids who have been with us for a long time,” Princehorn says, “so seeing them grow and change from a shy kid that cries and clings to mom, and now mom is trying to give them a kiss and they are so excited to get here and jump right into an activity. We see kids who used to test the waters who are now helpful to younger kids, who can show them the ropes and become mentors themselves.”
Princehorn talks wistfully about “a space that is our own, where we can have big things like a foosball table and aren’t restricted to what will fit in a storeroom, or what we can clear away on a rolling cart,” such as a comprehensive new RAPRD facility might one day bring. For now, the new space this summer will dramatically benefit the program and allow plenty of room to grow. She recalls, “The space last year made it feel like ‘Wow, there are a lot of kids in here.’ Whereas RELC is a big school for more kids. Hopefully parents can see how much opportunity there is there and get excited about it.”
We provide financial assistance so that Redmond kids who qualify can receive a scholarship to attend Camp Adventure Quest. A $30 donation can send two kids to Camp Adventure Quest for a day. A $60 donation could send one child for a week. If you support this program, consider a small donation to help more kids experience the fun of Redmond parks in the summer.
