ROCKINGHAM — Richmond County children will soon have a lot of free time on their hands, but there’s plenty of activities this summer to keep kids of all ages busy.
The Richmond County School System is offering the TechyKids Summer Camp Programs and Summer Feeding Program, while Richmond Community College is hosting four-day camps in June and July and the Sandhill Regional Library System is working with each Richmond County library to provide reading and craft events.
Summer can be a difficult time for parents and students due to the personal and financial strain of fighting boredom. To lessen this burden, Richmond County Schools provides free summer meals to students under the age of 18 between June 17 and July 11.
Fairview Heights Elementary and L.J. Bell Elementary schools are Summer Feeding Sites. Breakfast will be served at 7:30 a.m. and lunch at 11 a.m. Parents may also eat with their children for a small fee.
The Richmond County School System’s TechyKids Summer Camp Programs offer 14 different sessions this summer.
Superintendent Jeff Maples said in the 2019 Summer Programs Guide that he is proud of RCS’ summer programs and believes they provide “meaningful learning experiences.”
The sessions are spread across the county at Rockingham Middle, East Rockingham Elementary, Ellerbe Middle, Richmond Senior, Fairvew Heights Elementary, Cordova Middle, Ninth Grade Academy, Monroe Avenue Elementary, Hamlet Middle, West Rockingham Elementary and L.J. Bell Elementary to ensure that each student has the opportunity to attend a session closer to their home.
TechyKids delves into programming and coding, geocaching, baking, escape rooms, a reading of fairy tales through the eyes of the villains for first thru third grade students, robots and more. The camp hours are from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. for all sessions and dates and transportation is not provided. The first camp, “Growing Microgreens with micro:bits,” for rising 6th and 8th graders begins June 24 at 9 a.m.
The sessions from TechyKids ranges from first grade up to eigth grade and each camp is focused on a certain age range, such as first thru third grade or sixth thru eighth.
In mid-summer there will be an overall introduction to all the different specialized topics that are covered. “Diving into Technology,” taught by Katherine Bendell and Jill Buck, covers “robots, scavenger hunts, cublets, and more.” It has a maximum of 15 participants and is held at Fairview Heights Elementary School from July 15 thru 18.
For more information on TechyKids Summer Programs visit the Richmond County Schools website or call Alicia Butler at (910)-410-1706.
Richmond Community College is hosting their annual G.R.E.A.T. Summer Camps from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with lunch provided. Each camp is open to rising fifth graders up to rising seniors.
They are also holding a Workforce and Economic Development Career Exploration Summer Camp for rising ninth graders thru twelfth grade. The three options are Lineman Boot Camp, where students will learn the skills needed as an electric lineman, a Criminal Justic Examination Camp, using forensic skills to investigate crime scenes, and a Fire, EMS and Rescue Cadet Camp, provided to teach basic firefighting techniques, CPR and First Aid Training and basic rescue and EMS practices.
For more information on the Career Exploration Summer Camps please call Angineek Gillenwater, the WED Programming Director, at (910)-410-1848.
Richmond Community College’s G.R.E.A.T. summer camps are aimed more toward teaching children soft skills such as critical thinking, teamwork and provides a “roadmap” to becoming a working citizen, according to Director of Marketing and Communications Wylie Bell and Associate Dean Cynthia Reeves.
“So much of our work is technology based,” said Reeves. The programs offered are to help students understand the role of math, science, computer science and even electricians in the workforce.
G.R.E.A.T. Summer camps offers programs geared toward career-based activities such as Introduction to Drones held on July 8 thru 11 by Chad Osborne. Although the session is already full, students must have already taken Coding Level I and 3D Modeling Level II to register for it.
“We’re in the process of developing new camps for next year,” said Reeves. “We had so many students coming back we had to expand our coverage to provide new and exciting things for them.”
She explained that some students have been coming since the beginning in 2016 so there is constant need for change and growth, as with the technology field.
“We want them to be able to keep coming back up until high school so we’ve had to adapt,” Reeves said.
Additionally, the Sandhill Regional Library System has set up various times and dates for the libraries in the county to hold specialized events at each library location.
For example, the Kemp Memorial Library is having movie days on July 9, July 23, Aug. 6 and Aug. 20 and craft days on July 16, 17, 30, 31, 13, and 14. Each consecutive craft day is the same craft. There are two available dates due to new limits on the amount of kids that can attend. This year the maximum registration for craft days is 35.
The Summer Reading Program at Hamlet Public Library is separating their crafts and movies into children, teens and adults.
Each library has their own dates and events, they do not overlap dates to provide more coverage to the county. Contact your local library for more information.