The City of Nanaimo, Nanaimo RCMP and Nanaimo Fire Rescue combined skills and talents to host the city’s first Camp Courage summer camps this week.
About 30 children attended each of the two camps, held this Wednesday and Thursday, where they participated in fun activities while learning about the jobs and various roles police and firefighters perform in the community as well as the equipment they use while performing their duties.
Camp activities and games provided the children with examples of positive community leadership in a fun and exciting environment. Children also had to quickly figure out how to work as a team and even learned some practical life-saving skills from first responders through hands-on demonstrations.
Nanaimo RCMP conducted the morning camp sessions and brought a police bicycle patrol bikes, a police Zodiac and motorcycles. There were also police dog services demonstrations. Meanwhile, Nanaimo Fire Rescue demonstrated the operations and tools of fire trucks and hosted fire combat skills games and CPR lessons tailored to children.
“Camp Courage … is designed for 9 - 12 year olds so they can kind of get an idea of what our jobs are, our responsibilities, what equipment we use, through fun activities,” said RCMP constable Denise Fraser, event organizer.
Fraser said she got the idea for a Nanaimo Camp Courage after seeing a similar camp run on the Lower Mainland.
All participants were provided lunch and snacks, given Camp Courage T-shirts and even got to see how fast they could pitch a softball tracked by a police radar gun.