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Youth Services camp offers fun, food to local kids
Friday, July 23, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL
Isaiah Mackall, 10, left, and Jonathan Everett-Ferguson, 10, both of Prince Frederick make eggs Thursday at Camp ROAP at the Yardley Hills Community Center in Prince Frederick. Children at the camp developed and ran their own restaurant.
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Instead of bringing a paper bag lunch, the kids at Tri-County Youth Services Bureau's "Camp ROAP" did the cooking themselves.
Camp ROAP, an acronym for "Radical, Outrageous Adventures Program," is a two-week entrepreneurial-focused program divided by gender, its director Patricia Wheeler said.
The young men, whose session was every day last week from 1 to 3 p.m., indicated in a survey that they would enjoy starting their own mock restaurant.
On Thursday afternoon, the eight male campers opened up "Friends Restaurant" with a meal of waffles, turkey bacon, eggs and fruit, all of which the 6- through 13-year-olds prepared themselves.
"Do you really think I'd come to your restaurant? Come on, smile," Wheeler playfully chided 13-year-old JaVonte Everett Ferguson, when he welcomed his fellow campers to "Friends."
Wheeler said the campers all learned about restaurant positions, safety, sanitization and procedures.
"We didn't go too much into the money thing," Wheeler said, continuing that she did explain to the kids that running a business "starts with an idea and you have to make it work."
She said she told the campers not to expect instant wealth when starting their own business.
Wheeler continued that the program received assistance from several members of the community including Susan Rork of the Community Mediation Center in Solomons, Gregory Slappy and McArthur Jones of the Concerned Black Men of Calvert County and Michael Moore of the Calvert County Minority Business Alliance.
Wheeler said the camp was split between the two genders because "we can do more with fewer and we can give them more attention."
She said the girls' camp will be the week of July 26 and will likely involve opening up a mock beauty salon.
Both camps were run out of the Yardley Hills Community Center in Prince Frederick.
The program is in its third year, Wheeler said.
She added that the camp wasn't all business, as the boys tested out the new Edward T. Hall Aquatic Center in Prince Frederick on Wednesday.
"That was amazing; they had a ball," she said.
Rork said she was thrilled to see how accomplished the kids seemed at the end of the program.
"Every day they've done activities that have built up to this point and every day you can see their sense of achievement," she said Thursday while the kids were serving the food they had just made.
Wheeler said the weeklong boys' camp was to end Friday with a career assessment and closing ceremony.
"They've really been on task," she said of the group.
JaVonte, a Prince Frederick resident, said that despite enjoying the restaurant, his favorite part of the camp was "going to the pool."
The rising eighth-grader at Calvert Middle School said that he learned when starting a business "you have to start small and you have to figure out prices for what you're going to sell and what you're selling [in the first place]."
JaVonte said he might be interested in eventually opening his own video game company.
Anthony Jones of Prince Frederick, who is going to be in the third grade at Barstow Elementary School, said he liked everything about the camp.
The 8-year-old said the mock restaurant experience made him consider an eventual career as a chef, particularly since bacon was his favorite food to cook.
Wheeler said she hoped "Friends Restaurant" would be continued at Tri-County Youth Services Bureau's School Success Center as an after-school program in which students receive help with their homework and exposure to role models and social skills development.
