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| Southwest Center for Rural Initiatives Summer Camp participants read their poems during the center's awards ceremony in Opelousas on July 7, 2016. |
Baton
Rouge, LA – The Southwest Center for Rural Initiatives (SCRI) held an awards
ceremony on July 7 to celebrate the end of its five-week summer camp.
The
annual camp themed, “Welcome to the Fantastic Voyage,” provided some 95 St.
Landry Parish youth with various workshops on the topics of: Arts and Crafts; Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM); Healthy Living; Creative
Writing, Reading, Leadership/Citizenship and Youth Gardening.
During
the ceremony several of the youth read original poems written during the
creative writing/ poetry workshop, presented science fair projects and
discussed what they learned about themselves during the leadership/citizenship
workshop.
The
camp’s staff also discussed the educational field trips and tours the students
were provide with to the apple store, public library, skating ring, Opelousas
Museum and Interpretive Center and the Southern University Ag Center’s annual
Family and Youth Expo.
Camp
participant Chassidy Fontenot said she enjoyed the summer camp and the
opportunity it provided her to attend the SU Ag Center’s Expo.
“It
(Expo) was awesome,” explained Fontenot. “We were able to stay overnight in the
college dorms at Southern University and attend workshops. The workshop that
stuck out the most was the one that 19-year-old business owner Hayley Thompson
presented on how she started her own bakery as a teenager. The information encouraged
me to want to start my own business one day,” she added.
“The
camp provided a way for the students to prepare themselves for the upcoming
school year, especially with the STEM and creative writing workshops,” said the camp's director, Zenobia Guillory. “I thought it was very important for the younger
students to continue reading so we were able to participate in story time at
the library and we worked on sight words because we had a lot of students who
were going to the 1st grade.”
Guillory
went on to explain that the camp’s participants also participated in the parish
library’s summer reading program, in fitness workshops and learned to read food
labels.
“The
students were interested in reading the food labels of Pop-Tarts and Oreo cookies,”
laughed Guillory. “But it’s important that they are learning to read the nutritional
value of food at a young age,” she said.
Guillory
also noted that the students were excited about starting a garden. Saying that
she remembered one of the 16 year old’s telling her that he had never planted a
seed in his life. The camp’s garden provided him with the opportunity to plant
a seed and see the results of his labor.
“I
think the garden gave the students a chance to see that they can plant a garden
at their homes and the seeds will grow,” said Guillory.
Many
of the participant’s parents and grandparents attended the ceremony and were
impressed at what they saw.
“From
attending this ceremony, I can see how the program, its workshops and
activities have been very beneficial to my five children,” said Johnny
Fontenot. “If the SCRI will accept them, I look forward to having them in the
program again next summer,” added Fontenot.
“The
camp was exciting, fun-filled and I think we have them motivated for the
upcoming school year,” said Guillory with a smile.
The
SCRI is a satellite campus of the Southern University Ag Center. Located in
Opelousas, Louisiana, the center serves the 10 parishes of: St. Landry,
Lafayette, Vermilion, Acadia, St. Martin, Pointe Coupee, Avoyelles, Beauregard,
Allen and Evangeline.
To view highlights from the awards ceremony, click here.
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