For the past five years, the Daviess County Public Schools district has hosted an International Summer Camp for middle and high school students of international backgrounds, including the district’s migrant and refugee populations.
The length of the camp has been determined by the amount of funding available. In past years, the camp has gone as long as 15 days, but this year it is being held across a total of six days.
This year’s camp runs Tuesday through Thursday, May 28-30 and June 4-6 at Burns Middle School for students in seventh through 12th grades who attend Burns, College View and Daviess County middle schools, and Apollo and Daviess County high schools.
A variety of hands-on activities have been created to help students focus on reading and math skills, as well as life skills such as budgeting, cooking, how to complete applications for employment and job interview skills.
Youth Services Center coordinators from the participating schools have also scheduled guest speakers who will share information about community resources, and have planned field trips to offer these students more exposure to the Owensboro and Daviess County community.
“In the beginning, we wanted to introduce the kids to the community and introduce the community to these kids,” said International Camp instructor Taylor Phillips. “Now, we want to give them skills. We teach them percentage, sales tax and the cost of items on sale. We teach them the skills that they need to be beneficial members of society.”
On Tuesday, the students baked cookies at school, and on Wednesday morning, they visited Diamond Lanes South bowling alley. The students were in charge of completing each step of the process on their own, from renting shoes to selecting the proper amount of people for each lane to entering their names into the computer.
“We don’t baby them — we teach them to do things on their own,” Phillips said. “A lot of the stuff that goes into being an adult starts out very young.”
The students took turns bowling, kept a watchful eye on the screen for their scores and took photos and videos of their experience along the way.
