Rock climbing a favourite at Algonquin’s youth summer camp
Volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, badminton, pickleball, indoor curling, bean bag toss, scooter hockey, flag football, bowling, soccer and rock climbing are all on the menu at the Algonquin Wolves Sports Summer Camp.
Now in its second year, the camp is at the Algonquin Varsity Gym and the sports turf near Z-building. The camp offers more sports than most other camps.
“This is the best sports camp Ottawa has to offer. The facilities makes this all possible here at Algonquin College,” said Lisa Hartill, an athletics and recreation attendant at the college.
Most weeks of the camp are sold out. Children are organized into four groups based on age: Pups (age 7-8), Delta (9-10), Gamma (11-12) and Beta (13-14). There are 25 spots in each group per week.
“The activities are good… locker rooms are small. It needs more chairs to sit,” said Zakarerya Tantawy, age 8. “I like rock climbing a lot. We need more harnesses so more people can go at the same time.”
“I like it but it needs more space, more stuff, more teachers,” said Akram Rouiha, age 8. “The bowling balls are too heavy.”
The camp was created last year by Jenny Duval, manager of athletic operation facilities at the Algonquin Students’ Association, with the support of fellow manager Jori Ritchie, and Stephanie Rheaume, the campus recreation coordinator.
The camp runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A five-day week costs $250-$300, depending on the week. The Students’ Association takes the proceeds.
“This year we offer four weeks of camp and next year we hope to increase the camp to five weeks. We do not intend to increase [to] more than five weeks, because the gym is being rented for other events,” said Rheaume. “The first year, we started with three weeks.”
Once a week, Algonquin’s wolf mascot comes out to say hi to the kids and give positive reinforcements.
“I don’t believe the mascot has a name yet,” Rheaume said. “The Students Association is working on rebranding.”
The kids start the day with scheduled sports, then have lunch inside the Athletic and Recreation Centre with their respective age groups. After that, there’s free gym time until 2 p.m., then more activities. The weekly schedule is posted on a corkboard for parents to see. Parents also meet the camp coordinators while dropping off and retrieving their children.
Most parents are pleased with the services. “The facility is new, clean and very well organized,” said Noha Elmaghraby. The only negative feedback has been the time spent on the rock climbing wall. Each age group gets two hours twice a week, but the activity is very popular and some parents and kids have asked for more. Rheaume said that this is not possible due to needing to preserve time for the larger student body.
