From June through early August, children will be on campus for Kids’ College, a rotating selection of summer camp courses that has been providing educational fun for almost 40 years.

According to PSU Employer Engagement Specialist and former camp director Sherri McGregor, Kids’ College began in the mid-1980s as “Camp Nittany,” a day camp that provided a variety of lighthearted programming for approximately 75 students.

Over the years, McGregor said, the camp has grown in both attendance and scope, and now focuses on a highly engaging hybrid of fun and instructional offerings.

Children aged 4 to 15 may sign up for an unlimited number of week-long camps that run either 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, Flaig said.

Lachlan Salvadge (left), 6, of Flintstone, Md., reacts as he watches the baking soda volcano created by Eliana Smith, 8, of Altoona, "erupt" during Penn State Altoona Kids' College junior geologist camp on campus Friday morning. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

These camps can range from basketball training and coding, to learning how to play guitar, with a fresh batch of courses every summer.

The average camp size can vary, but is generally capped at 20 participants due to state-mandated staffing ratios, camp director Debbie Flaig said.

Draws from near and far

According to Flaig, the wide variety of camp themes that cater to different age levels help the camp attract participants from across the central Pennsylvania region.

“We have a student right now whose parents drive them up from Maryland everyday … we have kids that come down from Clearfield,” Flaig said. “Part of that is their parents don’t see anything closer to come to, and they see this as something to come to.”

Another important aspect of Kids’ College is the intergenerational appeal, Flaig said.

Since the program has been running for almost four decades now, staff have seen campers grow up, return as instructors and eventually bring their own children to the camp, she said.

“They see our camps and are like ‘oh these are great, I remember going to them when I was a kid, and I’m so glad you still have these camps and I’m really excited for my kids to come,'” Flaig said.

One of the most highly requested camps every year is Sense-ational Endeavors, which offers specialty-tailored, sensory-safe fun for kids with disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, Flaig said.

Sense-ational Endeavors is offered in an extended two-week format, unlike the usual one-week duration, in order to give campers more time to acclimate to the new environment and instructors.

According to Flaig, she recently ran into one of the camp’s regular participants and his grandmother while out running an errand, who told Flaig that he was incredibly excited to return to Sense-ational Endeavors later this summer.

“She said, ‘He keeps asking me if he can go back to camp this year, are they going to have camp this year,'” Flaig said.

Many moving pieces

Over the years, Kids’ College has amassed a treasure trove of craft supplies, much of it purchased in bulk and left unused from previous camps.

“We have a lot of supplies we can maintain from year to year, some of them we can keep from year to year because they’re non-perishable, so we can reuse things over and over,” Flaig said.

Because of this, Flaig’s makeshift headquarters on the ground floor of the Hawthorn building is full with stacks of neatly labeled plastic bins overflowing with construction paper, craft glue, colored pencils and other useful odds and ends.

“It’s a lot of organization,” Flaig said. “This is what I do all summer.”

Running a program this size is no small feat for Flaig and her team of instructors, she said, but a portion of that burden is alleviated by generous monetary donations from community members that help to pay counselors’ wages and purchase necessary supplies.

This year, Kids’ College received a grant from the Altoona Curve to fund Sense-ational Endeavors and several STEM-based camps for aspiring engineers and scientists.

In 2005, Investment Savings Bank created a sizable endowment for the camp, which has allowed Kids’ College staff to give scholarships to campers who were not able to afford tuition fees.

Kids’ College also receives financial support from the Perchey family and Encompass Health, Flaig said.

According to Flaig, her team of paid instructors and volunteers is intrinsic to the continued success of Kids’ College.

All instructors for summer 2024 camps are full-time teachers or professors, and must go through strict compliance training from Penn State before they’re allowed to lead a camp, Flaig said.

Since “this is camp, not school,” Flaig said she looks for instructor candidates that are willing to go above and beyond to make camp fun and engaging for the students, who would not be satisfied sitting alone by themselves in the back of the room.

According to Flaig, a willingness to “take off the teacher hat” and get their hands dirty mixing slime with campers or building a baking soda volcano is a big plus for potential counselors.

Local preschool teacher Veronica Berry has been a Kids’ College instructor for 13 years, and has led camps ranging from Fun With STEM to The Science of Star Wars.

“I’m always thinking of new topics. I try to do a new one every year,” Berry said.

In previous camps, Berry has run courses themed around egyptology, pirates, insects, dinosaurs and American Civil War history, among many others.

“Even with the history classes, I like to include STEM (topics) with that,” Berry said.

This year, Berry is running her fifth installment of Junior Geologists, where her campers can learn about the formation of rocks, minerals and the earth’s crust.

“Minds-on, hands-on” is one of Berry’s guiding principles for drawing up lesson plans for new camps, she said. This approach puts getting the kids excited and engaged in the material first and foremost.

“I probably go above and beyond what a normal teacher would do, I do a lot of research, learn a lot of different techniques for how to teach things,” Berry said. “I like to do things where the kids are experiencing things, not just learning about it.”