Camp Kindle’s campers and staff experience the “best week of their lives” while at Camp Kindle, with two annual session held in Nebraska and California. The camps provide HIV infected and affected youth residing throughout the Central and Western United States with a safe and accepting refuge from the challenges of living with HIV. These camps offer opportunities for young people to strengthen self-esteem through interactive participation in educational and recreational programming. Camp Kindle provides supportive environments where children and young adults can safely explore opportunities for growth and acceptance. We offer this camp at no expense to the youth in the family, this includes the cost of travel and/or other necessities. Camp Kindle accepts applications year round. Our camp staff are top notch and give 110% each day they spend with the campers.
Vision - Camp Kindle’s vision is to offer the young people they serve a chance to build a stronger future, one in which they believe in themselves, and where they have the leadership and character to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of others.
The LIT Education period at camp for the summers sessions of 2010 covered a variety of themes and character traits essential to leadership. Throughout the week the LITs worked in various groups doing activities and team-building exercises that related to self identity, communication, creativity and identifying leadership qualities in themselves as well as others. The education themes concluded with a group art project in which LITs were only allowed to use one assigned color. Having a clear vision for their mural, proper planning and communication as well as drawing on their own individual creativity were essential to this project’s success.
The week culminated in a graduation ceremony for all campers aged 15. Previously, the LIT’s were given a slip of paper with the name of one of their peers on it and asked to write down a couple qualities that make that individual a great leader. The graduates had their peer reviews read at the ceremony before it was opened up to the audience to expand on what makes each individual not only a great leader, but a great friend and participant at Camp Kindle as well. Each graduate was awarded a diploma for completion of the LIT program and a certificate of appreciation for participation in Camp Kindle.
In the future the program will be adapted to included the input and feedback from the last year’s Program Evaluations as well as previously uncovered components of leadership, while still including the basics and new activities as well. The group project will also change from year to year and draw on the campers’ abilities to set goals, work in groups, communicate with one another and see a project to completion.
