|
Latin American Heritage Camp |
| June 25th - 28th, 2009 Snow Mountain Ranch Fraser, CO |
| 2009 Co-Directors: Shelley Wiley, Patrice Clark and Gina Heumann |
“Bravo! We had a great, great time and will return for sure.” -LAHC Evaluation Comment |
Latin
American Heritage Camp in Colorado is one of the few camps of its kind in the
country, designed specifically for families with children adopted from Central
and South America, as well as those of Latino heritage
adopted within the United States. It is one of ten camps facilitated by the
highly respected Colorado Heritage Camps, Inc.
Latino American counselors serve as role models and mentors to the children as they participate with them in cultural classes while adult family members attend cultural and adoption related workshops ranging from Latino cooking and customs to the blessings and challenges inherent in our adoptive families. LAHC also encourages young adult Latino adoptees to join us as counselors to gain a deeper understanding of their culture while sharing their own adoption stories with each other and their younger counterparts.
This year's camp will again be held in the beautiful Colorado Rockies at the YMCA Snow Mountain
Ranch facility near Winter Park, CO www.ymcarockies.org -
a family vacation destination in itself. Registration materials will be going out this Winter, so NOW
is the time to request registration information to be placed on our
mailing list.
Additionally, young adult Latino adoptees have the opportunity to attend
camp as counselors or
workshop facilitators, and gain the same cultural appreciation and awareness as their younger counterparts,
while sharing their own adoption experiences. We also welcome members of Colorado's rich Latino community
who help us keep the camp culturally relevant each and every year as counselors, workshop facilitators,
activity consultants, and more!
Plans for 2009:
This year's camp theme, Viajando por Latinoamérica: "Traveling through Latin America" will explore various countries in Latin America and their distinct features.
Preschool/Elementary workshops and activities will include:
For all grades (Pre 3 to 5th grade) will participate in:
- HeArt Talks- art based program developed for each age group, designed with understanding of developmental stages of adoption awareness
- "Traveling through Latin America", using our kid sized "Village Houses" with each house representing a different country with specific crafts and activities.
- Folk singing with singer/songwriter Cristina Abaroa
-
Spanish with Maria Garcia - Latin American Handicrafts with Rita Wallace and Julie Marino
- Soccer with Mario Plaza and Julio Laris
- Cooking with Yvonne Bagley
- Learning the Mayan Calendar with Steve Hartmann
Other Preschool and Elementary workshops/activitites offered, depending on age:
Middle School and High School workshops and activities will include:
- Adoption related discussion groups with young adult adoptees.
- More than Me- focusing beyond themselves and raising funds to support others in Latin communities. Last year's middle and high school groups chose to support the Tandana Foundation this year, which supports projects in Ecuador to enhance families' lives.
- Options for this age group will be Latin Dance, making Latino crafts, cooking Latino foods, and possibly having a choice of soccer, another Y activity or hiking. All HSers will have the option to be Junior Counselors for part of one day, working with younger campers.
- The high school group will also go on a rafting trip on Friday.
- The middle school group will have the opportunity to participate in one or more outdoor educational and team building activities provided at Snow Mountain ranch.
- Both the middle and high school groups will also have supervised social functions for their groups on Friday night at camp.
Adult workshops will include:
- Roundtable discussions (This year we are having roundtables twice) with a wide variety of topics relevant to adoptive parents.
- Dealing with Prejudice and Racism with Astrid Dabbeni
- Latin American Dance with Mercedes Hammer
- Latin American crafts with Julie Morino
- Bullying and the Adopted Child with Kathryn Jens
- Latin American Cooking-offering 4 cooking classes this year with Margie Rodriguez and Jesse Brugger
- Hiking with John Hammer
Friday evening for parents:
- The Life of Guatemalan Women - small group discussions about similarities and differences between 5 different Guatemalan women's lives and ourselves.
We will, of course have our popular Fiesta on Saturday evening where Cristina Abaroa will perform. Cristina is a:
As always we shall have our delicious Latin American meals at lunch time, and plenty of opportunities for families who are new to camp or long time participants to share experiences and enjoy time being spent together.
Come travel with us through Latin America in 2009!
Space is limited, so please sign up early.
Thinking about giving camp a try but want to know more?
Click here to read our Frequently Asked Questions and
"Four Days
in the Life of Heritage Camp"
For more pictures of Latin American Heritage Camp 2008 click here
We look forward to seeing your family at camp!
Though
we have generated very strong support from Colorado's Latin American community,
we are always looking for more volunteers to
work with the kids, teach workshops, cook meals, etc., and to be counselors at
camp.
As a non-profit 501 C(3) organization, Colorado Heritage Camp is always
seeking financial assistance to help keep camp costs reasonable for families,
and still provide an outstanding program. If you'd
like to help, please go to the Donations section
of this web site, and thank you very much in advance.
We are also in need of donations of frequent flier miles to help defray costs of out of state speakers. If you have miles you can donate please email us at info@heritagecamps.org
We hope to see you at camp this summer. For further information, please contact us.
