Lexington Reading Camp is one of our expense-paid domestic mission trips to Appalachia. It began as a single camp as a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky, but has expanded to eight camps across the state. The mission of the camp is to provide intensive remedial literacy education to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade children who are struggling with learning to read. Below is a report by the Rev. Cindy Nawrocki about the EDWM mission trip to Reading Camp June 22-30, 2012. Photos courtesy of Micki Holder.
On June 22, thirteen people from the Diocese of Western Michigan headed to the mountains of Appalachia to help kids become better readers. These volunteers represented 11 different parishes and all but three of them had never attended one of our mission trips in the past. The age range of the volunteers was from 14 to 75.We spent the first day learning the process used by the Reading Camp Network and what was expected of us. All of the teaching is done in the mornings and included phonics, comprehension, strategies, writing and pleasure reading. The kids spent 30 minutes at each station every day. They had journals they wrote in every morning and then had other journals they wrote in at night. It was amazing to see some of the changes we witnessed in just one week.
The camp experience is not just about reading, and the kids had a chance to swim, hike, rappel, practice archery, make quilt squares and attend a campfire. The hikes included going to the top of the mountain and a trip to a bat cave. Three of the volunteers also tried each activity. Marcia Baker from St. Andrew’s, Grand Rapids said that she wanted to show the kids that even though she was afraid to rappel down the cliff, she trusted the staff helping her and conquered her fears. Pam Sten from St. Paul’s, St. Joseph and Micki Holder from St. Barnabas made up the rest of those three brave souls. The majority of the volunteers went on at least one hike, but those of us who didn’t try it got lots of exercise also.
The kids had movie night in which we watched the movie “Up” and had popcorn. The bonding of the campers was so much fun to watch. They played basketball, jumped rope played hand games and water games.
These children, all of whom were identified by their schools as being at least a year behind in grade level for reading, were finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade. Many of them had never been in the countryside before and had never heard of Michigan. After Rona Howell from St. Peter’s, Montague gave them a lesson about how to identify Michigan by using your hand, they got a kick out of asking what area on the hand we were from.
There are many hopes and plans to bring this experience back to our diocese and to staff a Reading Camp in Kentucky again next year. If you want the experience of a lifetime, come join us. We are evidence that any age can contribute to this type of mission experience. In addition to those already mentioned, we included Jim Gillard from Holy Cross, Kentwood, Judy Fleener and Claudine Dekker from St. Paul’s, Muskegon, Marge Collinge from St. Gregory’s, Muskegon, Adam Heibel from St. Mark’s, Grand Rapids, Tabitha Bellinger from Holy Trinity, Manistee, Mary Davies from St. Andrews, Grand Rapids, Marilu St. John from Zion United Methodist in Ionia, Mary Climer from Prince of Peace Lutheran, Portage, and Cindy Nawrocki from the diocesan staff.
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