New Year:
In year three, I decided to focus on the branding of the camp, knowing that it would only continue to expand. This happened when the name fullouT21 was made along with the website. The name comes from the ultimate goal in cheerleading which is hitting a perfect “full out” and capitalizing the “T” with 21 to abbreviate Trisomy 21 which is Down syndrome. Another aspect that came from the maturing of the brand was a partnership with other organizations.
Partnership:
FullouT21 decided to partner with the Down Syndrome Center of Puget Sound (DSC). This partnership was formed with the assistance of a parent from a previous session, who put me in contact with the DSC. I volunteered at some of their events and loved how they operated. The kids loved the staff and events and I knew I had to be a part of it somehow. I began to talk with the project coordinator about bringing my camp into the DSC. I learned about communication throughout this process because I had to be professional to make this work. Scheduling phone calls and in-person meetings always made me nervous but I quickly learned that this program wanted to support me and believed in the mission of my camp.
The partnership has been essential in securing a long-term facility and expanding our reach. The DSC has been a wonderful partner, remaining flexible with scheduling and generous with resources. Through work with the project coordinator, I have been granted access to the space for our camp.
The DSC also shared flyers advertising the camps in their newsletter and social media. Soon enough I had one out of three sessions fully booked, along with one session half full. As camp was arriving soon we agreed to cancel one of the sessions because it had no bookings. This left me disappointed because it was still my goal to grow the camp in numbers each year. With that in mind I still had a total of 13 kids signed up, which is growth from past years.
Camp sessions:
As camp started, I was so thankful to be in a space that was designed for camps like this, as well as having a space the kids felt comfortable in, given their familiarity with the DSC. The first week of camp went smoothly excluding one aspect: attendance. It was frustrating to me how some kids did not show up some days of the camp because it felt like my planning time was wasted. Besides this, the kids were laughing or dancing 100% of the time which was incredibly fun to watch.
As for the second week, the plan was to have nine campers. This is much more than I have had in the past, so the planning process was different. I decided to take on two new members of the staff, along with myself and Mia, who has been alongside me running these camps for three years. I was initially nervous about having new people become staff because this camp is something I have worked hard on so closely for the past few years, and I wanted to make sure that new members would stay true to the aims of the program. I trained the new staff and decided it was best to trust them and help them throughout the week. The two new staff, Joe and Elise, worked better with the kids than I could have hoped, and the second week went extremely well. The only struggle was managing one camper's behavior in terms of throwing objects. The first thing this camper would do as he arrived at camp would head to the playroom to throw all the toys. By using persuasion and taking away harmful objects to isolate the camper from his usual habits, this problem was solved by the end of the week.
I have a distinct memory of finishing week two and not being able to believe how much fun it was and how smoothly it went. That moment was when I became so proud of how much the camp has grown and developed.
