Camp ASCCA Blog

Our schedules for this week said “It’s a Mystery” for Wednesday’s night activity. No one knew what was going to happen when dinner was over, but Camp Director Matt Rickman told us all to head to The OutPost. We ended up having a concert by local band Route 66!

All of our staff members play a vital role in how successful a day at Camp is. But there’s one group of staff members in particular whose role is probably one of the most important ones at Camp. Everyday, our nurses are hard at work sorting and distributing meds to all the campers at designated times and making sure everyone, including staff, are safe and in good health for the day’s activities. We’ve got some amazing nurses on Summer Staff this year and we though it’d be nice for you all to meet them!

Today, the Director of Marketing and Communications Dana Rickman and summer PR Intern Karla Silva traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, to speak at one of the Trussville Noon Rotary Club meetings. Mrs. Rickman was invited to come speak about Camp ASCCA by Mrs. Ann Layne. Mrs. Layne, her husband Ron, and others in this rotary club are longtime donors of Camp ASCCA.

This week’s theme is “Camp ASCCA Mysteries” and fittingly Tuesday afternoon we had a mystery snack. Campers and staff grabbed a snack out of the box without knowing what they would get. Some got Kit Kats, Goldfish crackers, or Fig Newtons.

Today during our backwards day, we had the talent show first thing in the morning! After breakfast, campers and all of the staff headed to the Outpost to see what kind of talents campers in session 5 had. This is the talent show with the most participation and the most acts. There were about 70 campers signed up for this talent show.

Campers had the time of their lives tonight as they learned a synchronized swimming routine from Program Staff members Gwin Walker and Victoria Dean. According to Gwin and Victoria, Free Choice at the pool during Mobile Rotary Week always turns in to synchronized swimming of some sort. Last week, they were playing around and making up moves to “Under the Sea” from Disney’s The Litte Mermaid , and thought it’d be cool to add it to this week’s schedule.

In our latest “Counselors of ASCCA” video, Billy reveals how working at camp has changed himself and the people around him.

Little Italy Pizzeria’s co-owner Mark McClurg came back to Camp ASCCA yesterdat for a cooking class during free-choice period! He came earlier this summer and was interviewed by PR intern Jasmine Reed. More insights into his life and what initially brought him to camp can be found here. He introduced himself to today’s group and demonstrated how to treat the dough. After adding some flour, he patted the dough, rolled it, and then spun it in the air a few times. Program staff employees helped him pass out flour and portions of dough out to every single camper and counselor to experiment with.

For tonight’s activities, cabins swapped places from yesterday’s activities. Davis, Chicaksaw, Cherokee, Redstick, and Crow painted soul stones and made time capsules, and Moundville, Creek, Choctaw, and Cheaha went to a pool party!

During Free Choice today, camper’s channeled their inner Picasso as they painted with special guest B’Beth Weldon. A full-time artist from Fairhope, Alabama, B’Beth has taken workshops such as this one all around the globe to places like Beijing, France and more!

Campers arrived for Mobile Rotary Week with hig energy, ready to get night one started. While some campers went to a pool party, others from Moundville, Creek, and Cheaha cabins made soul stones and time capsules.

On Sunday, counselors, program staff, full-time staff, nurses, and pr staff picked up campers from the Goodwill Easterseals of the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, and brought them to Camp ASCCA! The Camp ASCCA staff drove down to Saraland on Saturday afternoon and stayed the night to be ready to sign-in campers early Sunday morning.