The Department of Recreational Sports and Wellness hosted “Camp Rec Spring Break,” making use of activities such as the chicken dance as a recruitment tool for potential Southeastern students.
Camp Rec was held Monday, April 1 through Thursday, April 4 in the Pennington Student Activity Center. Children ages 5-12 were able to participate in crafts and activities, present performances to their parents and learn about nutrition from camp counselors.
According to Dollie Hebert-Crouch, director of Recreational Sports and Wellness, Camp Rec is primarily held for the purpose of getting young children involved in Southeastern’s campus so that they may consider becoming students at the university in the future.
“The purpose is to create some loyalty to Southeastern with some of our very young and energetic future students. It’s truly a recruiting effort,” said Hebert-Crouch. “We have a lot of parents who are alumni of Southeastern and need a place to put their children during spring break when they’re still at work, and they want their kids to still be active and to eat well.”
Children remain active at Camp Rec by playing games such as tag, dodge ball and red rover.
“We want them to be active in a structured kind of way, but not to the point where it’s not fun,” said Hebert-Crouch. “Our focus is to create activities that are like physical education but still have that fun feeling so that the children can feel like, ‘Hey, even though I’m not the most athletic child, I can still participate with this group of kids.'”
Camp Rec participants were split into age groups so that appropriate activities could be offered to each group. On the last day of Camp Rec, the children performed for their parents. The “Yellow Group,” which included ages 5 and 6, were taught the chicken dance, the “Blue Group,” ages 7 and 8, performed a cheer, and the “Green Group,” ages 9-12, did basketball drills.
According to Hebert-Crouch, Camp Rec has garnered positive feedback from both the parents and children involved, fulfilling its purpose of establishing a foundational relationship with potential students.
“Rec Sports and Wellness really enjoys doing this program because we do get to see what our future looks like here at Southeastern,” said Hebert-Crouch. “The future is bright, because the kids who come here and the parents that are involved with the program are just very positive with Southeastern and the experiences that they have.”