Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue added a second week of its junior lifeguard summer camp this year due to high demand, and both weeks are already waitlisted. For children who didn’t register in time or have different interests, the town is offering numerous other summer camps, from soccer to cooking.
During last year’s junior lifeguard camp, 30 children spent one week learning various lifesaving skills from Wrightsville’s lifeguards. They practiced giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), swimming in the ocean holding a buoy and executing rescue techniques. Each day’s activities built on the day prior, and on the last day of camp they shadowed a lifeguard on the job.
Another fairly new Wrightsville Beach camp also filled up quickly this year, despite its organizers adding an extra week. Camp Chris Stone, organized by the Wrightsville Beach Museum of History, grew from two weeks to three weeks this summer and all three weeks are full.
The camp’s namesake was a Harbor Island resident, and passionate about exploring and appreciating the area’s natural environment. The camp reflects that spirit with outdoor activities like clamming, crabbing and boating through the marshes. Children will create their own wooden fishing poles and learn how to bait the hook and cast the line, museum executive director Madeline Flagler added.
The camp will also include educational activities like dissecting sea worms and creative activities like making ocean-themed art projects.
Flagler said the museum didn’t advertise the camp too much, but she had a feeling it would fill up quickly because of feedback she received last summer. Parents who told her they sometimes had to drag their kids to camp during the summer said that was never an issue with Camp Chris Stone.
“The parents said the kids would get up in the morning and they would be ready to go,” she said. “They were very excited.”
For children who aren’t registered for summer camp yet, the town offers a number of other opportunities for a variety of interests: soccer, lacrosse, tennis, basketball, art, performance cub, cotillion and cooking.
The 2016 camps are essentially the same as 2015, said Katie Ryan, parks and recreation program supervisor, except the basketball camp has a new instructor, Tre Whitted. Whitted is a Wilmington native who played college basketball for Marshall University’s Thundering Herd.
“He has a facility right now where he does basketball training,” Ryan added, “so he’s very experienced and we’re excited to have him.”
Additional options for parents are the youth programs offered at University of North Carolina Wilmington and Cape Fear Community College. UNCW offers STEM-related programs like marine science and engineering while CFCC offers Spanish immersion, scuba and more.
To register for Wrightsville Beach’s summer camps, visit www.townofwrightsvillebeach.com
UNCW’s camps can be found here: www.uncw.edu/youth
CFCC’s camp listings can be found at http://cfcc.edu/communityenrichment/summer-camps/
email [email protected]
