Converge Church in Moorestown will host a free Buddy Up, one-day kids camp for students in first through sixth grade on Saturday, June 29, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., rain or shine.
“It’s a full day VBS (vacation Bible school), 9 to 5, with a barbeque afterwards when the families come to pick up their children,” said Kitty Bowen, children’s ministry director for the church. “They’re welcome to stay; we have a barbeque. We’ll have the kids talk a little bit about what they learned during the day.”
The barbeque is also free and will start at 5 p.m. The camp includes team-building activities, lessons on friendship, a guest speaker (counselor Carlton Bogan), group time, games and a free lunch and snacks.
“We are using the curriculum Buddy Up, which is about friendships,” Bowen explained. “ … What we do during the day is we break all the kids off into two teams. We have a green team and a yellow team, and I notify the parents a week before and I let them know what team their child is on. And they can come dressed in those colors, they can color their hair, they can bring clothes … Anything that has to do with that color for their team.”
The kids will stay with their teams throughout the day and gain points for all kinds of activities. Participants will also earn points for their respective teams and can earn points individually.
“Making a friend, being kind to somebody, picking up trash, we give them points for everything,” Bowen noted. “The incentive is just to give them positive things to do and reinforce that through the point system, and they get it for their whole team.”
The camp’s main games will include a miniature version of Shocker Ball and a tug of war. Because this year’s version focuses on kids discovering what a true friend is – as explained by Bowen – there will be another game that will have students getting to know each other.
“We’re doing a little game called ‘speed friending,’ where they’re going to travel around (the church),” Bowen pointed out. “They’ll have questions to ask kids and kind of get to know some kids … They’ll be working on some skits as a team, so they take a whole team approach. The kids learn team building.”
To register for the camp, visit https://convergechurch.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2262675. To receive a $5 T-shirt, attendees are encouraged to register no later than Friday.
“I’m really hoping when they (campers) leave that they’ll have had a great time, but that they’re going to learn something,” Bowen said. “You always want kids to have fun, but I like them to have fun with a purpose. I like it to be, ‘We’re having fun, but it’s meaningful. It’s for a purpose (and) we’re learning something.’”
