KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Camp WIN in Kansas City will go virtual this summer, giving campers a chance to stay active at home — and their counselors a chance to stay busy.
"We have a youth advisory board program that is is roughly 35 high school girls from all over the metro, and we've still been meeting with them monthly online and we've seen really great engagement from them," WIN for KC director Jessica Blubaugh said.
In Blue Springs, Summer Day Camp has not been canceled yet, with those positions remaining a possibility for summer work for young adults.
"We typically hire anywhere from 15 to 25 camp instructors that have a job for the summer," said Blue Springs Parks and Recreation director Dennis Dovel. "Certainly I think we're optimistic that that camp will happen in some form."
Employment is important during the summer months for teens and young adults, but the experiences at some of these jobs are even more important for their future development.
"I just think that the value that these kids give not only to the department, but a community," Dovel said. "I mean, there are a lot of times, providing child care for a family that has to work and sometimes it helps a younger kid to relate to somebody that maybe is not Mom and Dad, but is an older kid. I think it provides a lot of life lessons."
It's a win-win for both sides — the older group at work, the younger kids getting on their feet this summer.
"Really the goal is that we're still administering an experience for kids at home and that one, allows them to stay physically active and gives them a framework to do so and two, still instills some of the life lessons that we would have been putting in front of kids and hopefully having them grasp onto the in-person experience," Blubaugh said.
