News

Record numbers head to 4-H camp

How often do you see people lining up outside a county administration building smiling and waiting in eager anticipation? It happens every spring at the Henry County Administration Building as children and their families register for 4-H camp.

All the smiles and eagerness are a result of the quality and popularity of the Henry County-Martinsville 4-H camp. “Last year, our camp was filled in less than 2 hours, and we had to put several families on a waiting list,” says 4-H agent Brian Hairston. The Henry County-Martinsville program boasts of the highest camp participation rate in the commonwealth with more than 340 campers.

Youth attend camp at the W.E. Skelton 4-H Educational Center at Smith Mountain Lake, one of the six year-round educational centers located throughout the state. More than 16,000 participants are involved in 4-H camping at these centers each year.

Each residential camp provides overnight accommodations, three healthful meals a day, and an opportunity to live away from home for a week. They offer a wide variety of events not normally available at home, including canoeing, swimming, archery, aquatic instruction, shooting education. The 4-H camping program is cooperative group living in a natural environment that focuses on the campers’ social, spiritual, mental, and physical development.

In addition to the standard camping activities offered by the 4-H educational center, Hairston and his co-workers partner with the community to provide additional programming during the week. The local Master Gardeners come to help the campers build birdhouses. A photographer teaches for the entire week and other local instructors teach karate, dance, and Spanish.

Hairston attributes much of the camp’s success to his efforts to reach students throughout the school year. He visits 11 public schools in the area at least once a month, and has established 4-H programs in some of the area’s private schools.

Local businesses are also instrumental to the camp’s popularity, providing funds for camp scholarships, and helping more than 60 youth attend camp in 2006 who otherwise may not have been able to.

Most of all, Hairston says word of mouth by the children who have had a positive camp experience is his most effective form of advertising. “Each year before camp is over, children ask when camp will be held next year,” he adds.