Helping Military Kids attend Camp

During the summer of 2010, fifty kids from Bremerton attended YMCA Camp Seymour. This is not breaking news, Camp Seymour has been working with school districts from Pierce, Mason, Kitsap and King Counties for years, teaching hand-on science and environmental education, during the school years and using tools like campfires, bows, arrows, kayaks, sailboats, crafts, sports and games, during summer programs, to teach life lessons about responsibility, caring, respect and honesty. What made this group special is that one or both of their parents were stationed on the USS John C. Stennis, aircraft carrier.



















Military kids often find themselves moving from city to city and struggling to make new friends. Camp Seymour commits to helping kids not only make new friends, but to teach kids how to make new friends, perfect skills for these kids to become even more successful as they move on to their high school years.

As navy children, their moms and dads have been the folks with the on water skills, but at camp many of these kids learned to kayak, canoe or sail in the safety of Camp Seymour's, Glen Cove, on the South Puget Sound. The camp staff and parents become as proud of these kids as the american public is of their moms and dads, serving the US.

In 2008 and 2009, this project was funded with grant sources from the Sierra Club, that made the commitment to helping teach the kids from Bremerton about ecology, marine science and the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, the funding has dried up.

We want to ensure that the crew members from the USS Nimitiz, soon to be stationed in Bremerton and the USS Stennis, many of whom' families still live in town, have this opportunity this summer.

You can play a role and here's how...Donate yourself - visit our Strong Kids Campaign page - to make a pledge. Share this story - email the link, tweet or re-tweet to friends and family that care about kids and/or have connections to make it happen.

Please, don't let these kids miss out.

Watch our YMCA Strong Kids Campaign video.

Read the piece on the USS John C. Stennis kids at Camp Seymour in the Kitsap Sun, August 2010.