New soccer camp at JCCGV

MICHELLE DODEK

School is almost over. Even with the warmer weather, some parents remain in denial that their children will soon have no school, therefore, no structured activities all day long. It's time to look for ways to keep children happy and occupied for the summer.

The Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCCGV) has a full range of camps, including Camp Shalom for children from two to 12, as well as a line up of specialty camps. The specialty camps include experiences like cooking, interior design and a highly sought after spa camp. The director of children's recreational programs and the camp director, Shirly Goldstein, is excited about a brand new, signature camp this year. Challenger Sports is the premier soccer camp provider in North America and they will be offering their British Soccer program through the JCCGV this year. "Other JCCs in the States have been using British Soccer," said Goldstein, "so when they decided to move into our area, we wanted to offer this excellent program."

The camps use coaches trained and brought in from Britain to coach for the summer. Aside from putting a child in camp, parents can extend the soccer experience and billet a coach for the week their child is in camp. Children can start honing soccer skills at age three or come into camp with an established skill set and participate in six-hour-a-day camps with other players aged seven to 14. Goldstein said she has been working for two years with the Parks Board to secure Montgomery Park field for this program. Located at 43rd Avenue, a block west of Oak Street, the park is perfectly situated for a JCCGV camp.

Another new athletic camp is baseball camp. The JCCGV has partnered with the Jewish Softball League to create a camp that will link the younger generation of Jewish athletes to the next. "We want kids to know that a Jewish person can be a sporty person. It's a way to show that you can be a part of the Jewish community always," Goldstein commented. The three instructors plan to use the money they make in the summer to help fund their trip to the 2009 International Jewish Men's Slow Pitch Softball Tournament in Minnesota.

Not all of the camps are geared toward sports. Art and Design Makers is focused on budding interior decorators. Each child will make projects to transform a room at home. Goldstein said that the JCCGV needed differently focused camp experiences because, "Our clients have been looking for other things at other places, so we wanted to continue to add to our programming. We offer a great product and it's very competitive."

In line with the philosophy of the early childhood development programs at the JCCGV, but with less learning and more fun, according to Goldstein, the children and youth camps at Camp Shalom offer a broad-based program for the summer. The head staff members of each camp are JCCGV-trained early childhood educators. These teachers use a child-centred approach in all interactions, the same as in the preschool and day-care programs.

In Camp Shalom, the youngest group has a 1:4 counsellor-to-child ratio and the others have a 1:5 ratio. All the centre's camps feature swimming and crafts, theme days and music. Older campers have more Jewish content, field trips and, eventually, three-night sleep-away excursions. By Grade 9, campers begin the process of training to be counsellors and, by Grade 11, they can help run the camps they grew up attending.

Michelle Dodek is a part-time writer and mother of two small children.

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