Week Ten – Celebrate City Camp!

For our final week of City Camp this summer, we celebrated by doing some of our favorite things and just having fun. We had an average of 75 kids each day and served 882 child meals.

A huge thanks to the Vivion Road YMCA and Sherwood Bible Church for letting us swim again this week. It has been awesome to be able to bring the campers all summer!

We had a special guest this week, Priscilla Howe, who came and told stories to our kids—they had such a great time!

Thanks to the Kansas City Police Department for letting our teen crew come out and tour the Metro Patrol Division.

We had a lot of awesome field trips, including hiking at Cave Spring Nature Center, playing in the fountains at Concourse Park, visiting the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and swimming at Super Splash Water Park.

We finished the week with a return to one of our favorite field trips all summer, Bump City—thanks for giving us a discount! The kids had a blast and it was a great way to wrap up a fantastic summer!!!

Our biggest thanks goes to our City Camp Interns. These 16 people helped make this summer the best year of City Camp ever! Thanks for all your hard work, long hours, and most of all, for making this a fun place where kids saw God’s love in you and through you daily.

Week Nine – Heroes

What a fun and busy week! Campers enjoyed learning what it means to be a hero, visiting real-life heroes, and finding out more about our ultimate Hero, Jesus.

Thanks to the Kansas City Fire Department for bringing their fire trucks by to let the kids check them out and for letting us come tour the Northeast and Westport stations. The kids loved getting to see what life is like at the fire station—thanks for being so welcoming and sharing with them!

Thanks also to the Kansas City Police Department for allowing us to tour the Metro Patrol Division. Our campers were so excited to see the holding cells and the SWAT vehicles, and to meet one of the accelerant detection dogs in-training! We appreciate them taking the time to answer our many, many questions and showing us around!

We visited Safety Street again and learned about fire safety and 911. We also had a guest speaker, Kevin Horner, who joined us to share his anti-bullying presentation—thanks for helping our kids learn how to be heroes and help each other!

We wrapped up our week with a fieldtrip to Clay County Parks & Rec where the kids took classes on archery, fishing, reptiles and amphibians, and mammals of Missouri. Thanks for a day packed with learning and fun at the lake!



Week Eight – Night at the Museum

This week we used themes from the movie 'Night at the Museum': pilots, dinosaurs, cowboys, Egypt, and others. Campers made airplanes, dinosaurs, pyramids, and a special treat -- homemade ice cream!

The highlights of the week were swimming, of course, at the Vivion Road YMCA and Sherwood Bible Church, visiting the Kansas City Museum, and skating at River Roll!

Thanks to the KC Museum for letting us come out and enjoy story time and many awesome crafts and activities! The kids also had a super fun time skating, thanks River Roll! And thanks to the anonymous donor who bought snacks for everyone while we were there!

Week Seven – Extreme Weather

This past week we took a break from the hot, dry weather we’ve had and talked about snow, rain, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We had about 70 campers join us each day and they learned that God is all-powerful as we talked about stories in the Bible when God has used the weather to show His glory. Campers were so excited to learn the memory verse for the week:

“The Lord gives me light and saves me.

Why should I fear anyone?

The Lord is my place of safety.

Why should I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1

The kids were creative and energetic in their songs, raps, and skits to help them remember the verse. We celebrated with our teen crew who has been working hard each week and took first place in the performance on Friday!

Once again, a huge shout-out to the Vivion Road YMCA and Sherwood Bible Church for letting us swim! Our younger campers enjoyed a visit to Safety Street where they got to learn about weather safety and pet safety. They had a blast hanging out at Shawnee Mission Park too! Another highlight of the week was a visit from KCTV5’s Chief Meteorologist, Chris Suchan, who shared the story of how he became a weatherman, showed videos of hurricanes and tornadoes, and shared how the kids can stay safe in extreme weather. Thanks so much for visiting City Camp! We ended the week with a fantastic trip to Science City at Union Station— thanks for letting us come explore!

Week Six – Leaving A Legacy

Our friends from Legacy Ministries in Wichita, KS shared a week of music and arts with our campers for the third year in a row, and the kids loved it! Our average this week was 87 campers per day. They each had opportunities for lots of fun and creativity in their classes, including: guitar, jewelry making, baking, flying things, sports, dance, crafts, and much more. Some of our kids began learning how to play the guitar and write songs, others baked tasty treats—like colorful cupcakes and twisty pretzels, many made beautiful bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. Several of the campers really enjoyed building airplanes of different types and flying them around the park.

On Friday the kids showcased all their projects for their families during our Ice Cream Social. Each camper’s artwork was on display and groups performed the skills they had been practicing all week. Guests were surprised by a special performance of martial arts where several of the campers broke solid boards in two using the techniques they learned throughout the week. It was a special time to share the activities of the week with loved ones and have families meet our Legacy Camp friends too! Thanks so much to each person who volunteered their time to make this a memorable week for the City Camp kids!

Week Five - Christmas in July

Campers were surprised to come in on Monday morning and find the Youth Center decorated for Christmas! An average of 85 kids joined us each day for the festivities: decorating Christmas trees, listening to Christmas stories, making gingerbread houses, and learning about the real meaning of Christmas—celebrating the birth of Jesus, our Savior.

The weather was hot, and we were grateful once again to the Vivion Road YMCA for allowing us to use their swimming pool. We stayed cool with thoughts of winter weather and even enjoyed a Christmas movie and hot chocolate—yes, the kids actually wanted to drink hot cocoa! Many thanks to Noland Road Baptist Church for letting us use their building!

Thanks again to everyone who makes City Camp possible!

Week Four – Celebrating the Olympic Games

This past week the theme was Olympics, and who was here to join us, but the youth group from Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas!!! THANKS ONE TEN YOUTH GROUP!!!! We stayed busy with dance parties, scavenger hunts, roller skating at River Roll, getting creative at Hallmark’s Kaleidoscope, swimming at CoCo Key Water Resort and fun at the petting zoo at Deanna Rose Farmstead! The neighborhood carnival was also quite amazing; the snow cones were a highlight of the day.

For some, this week was a reunion and for others it was a week of meeting new people. The week was filled with many great gym games. Our Texan friends lead a classic game of dodgeball with one important twist… THERE WERE CHICKENS… Yeah, chickens in dodgeball. Thankfully, they were not real chickens. The kids had a ton of fun throwing rubber chickens at each other.

The week was exciting and some of the fun included seeing all the cool dance moves of the campers and the leaders from One Ten youth group as they joyfully participated in dance parties and choreographed dances. Week after week it’s such a great feeling to see the smiles of the campers, and to be able to share the greatness of God.

Week Three: Around the World

The third week of City Camp was no less exciting than the first two. We had our highest attendance so far—85 children joined us on Friday! This week we learned about the Great Commission and God’s love for the nations. The campers did an awesome job of memorizing and performing Matthew 28:19-20.

 

The kids learned about different cultures all over the world. They engaged in many activities including bartering in the market, eating candy sushi, and making maracas. A big thank you to our very own international interns who were very excited to teach the campers about Korean culture!

 

We stayed busy with our usual swimming—thanks to the Vivion Road YMCA and Sherwood Bible Church—and games and finished the week with a trip to the Kansas City Zoo! It was a great opportunity to see creatures from all nations and we are very grateful to the Zoo for allowing us to bring our group for free!

Week Two: Gone Fishin’

This past week was another fantastic week at City Camp! Nearly 80 kids joined us each day for our under the sea adventure. Campers spent the week learning that God is powerful and Jesus is the only hope we have. They stepped up to the challenge to learn their memory verse for the week (Micah 7:19) by writing songs, skits, and raps. They were excited to learn God’s word and practiced all the time… even at the swimming pool!

Campers kept busy with a plethora of activities, including ocean murals, outdoor games, learning about creatures that live in the sea, and so much more. Thanks again to Sherwood Bible Church and the Vivion Road YMCA for letting us bring the kids out to swim twice. We also had the opportunity to take all the campers to visit the Sea Life Kansas City Aquarium thanks to an anonymous donation. Campers really enjoyed getting to see those creatures in person and made memories that will last a lifetime—especially experiencing the exhibit where they got to touch the starfish and sea urchin!

Week One: To Infinity and Beyond!

What an awesome week! We kicked off the summer with an average of 70 campers each day. It was Outer Space week and the campers learned that God is big, He’s the Creator, and He loves us.

We served about 95 lunches every day! This year we offered breakfast also and the majority of our campers were excited to participate in this new program.

Campers also had a blast making all kinds of crafts, like shooting stars, colorful planets, and edible mars rovers! They played fun games and went on cool field trips too. Thanks to Sherwood Bible Church and the Vivion Road YMCA for allowing the campers to enjoy their pools twice this week! It was a great opportunity to help the little ones learn how to swim. A huge thanks to Bump City at the Gage Center for letting us bring all our staff and kids out for free—the smiles on all their faces showed us that they loved jumping on the trampolines, swinging into gigantic foam pits, conquering the rock wall, and racing down the inflatable slide.

 

Thanks to everyone who made our first week of City Camp so successful! Props to our interns for stepping in making things work on their first week. Their unity and dedication to our kids and our city showed as the week went by. Thanks to our kids for making us laugh, smile and learn with the coming of each new day.

(Submitted by Annie DeLapp, Youth Coordinator at City Union Mission)