BBCYC Camp 2008

I went to BBCYC Camp from July 7-12, 2008. BBCYC (Blackfoot Bingham County Youth Coalition) is an organization in which to enable youth to get involved so they can make a difference in the community. We went up in a van to Island Park to stay in cabins, and on the way there, I got a bloody nose (that never happens). But it was all good. Besides that slight problem, we arrived there safely.

The theme of this camp was communication. We had lessons and activites to talk about and help build skills to enable us to interact with others more effectively. The lessons and activities were taught by the councilors, campers from past years. That is really neat, because the goal of our coalition is to create leaders for tomorrow. And that is exactly what is happening. These are my friends from camp. They are amazing people!

Our lessons were usually inside the boys' cabin (Mark's cabin) or outside around the fire pit.

Here some of the campers are waiting to get started with an activity.

This is one of the trust exercises that we did. You had to hold someone up while trusting someone else to keep you up.

It got hard out in the sun, because it was really hot and bright that day, so camp members began shading the participants from the sun's bright rays.

Yes, that is a picture of me. I was about a month old. When we first got to camp, we had to write on a note card who we were as a baby. We found that there wasn't a lot to write. Then they were hung up on the screen room's inside window. This was an activity to show us that we now have developed qualities and values through the teachings of others. Now it is our turn to help influence the future generations for the better.

Then, two days later, we were given little white baby shoes to express who we are now. These are my shoes.

It was fun to make these shoes to show what I believe. I think that they do give a picture of who I am. These were hung up beside our baby pictures so that the BBCYC executive board could see them.


You can see the pictures on the window.

This is inside the kitchen of the boys' cabin. Here are three of the councilors: Kayla, Marcus, and Adrianna. Sandra is by the entrance to the main room. To your right, you can see the door to the screen room. Here, we had bags for sugar grams, which were nice notes that you were supposed to write to each person, and it had to be something that you noticed about them that was more personal then "nice hair". I spent a lot of time in the screen room writing sugar grams with Jesse and some of the other campers. We had a lot of fun talking and joking around. We were presented with our sugar gram bags on the last night of camp.

Here are some of the sugar grams that I received. They really were "sweet". Especially the last one. ;)

This is Princess Pat, as those at camp call her, and one of the campers, Kye. Pat and Mark are the BBCYC leaders, and because of them, this camp was possible. They are amazing. We call Pat a princess, because she is always so honest and kind.

Here is a picture of Josie, Braxton, and I just sitting around talking. There was always someone going around taking pictures. Every day after the lessons and day activities, we got to go play on the water. (One day we even floated the Buffalo River! That was really fun, even when I got flipped out of my tube, once by Nate and once by Jesse.) Josie is awesome! She is my life boat buddy (LOL). Josie could not swim either, and one day, we decided that we were going out in the water anyways. With our life jackets, of course (I being silly, accidentally called them life boats. whoops).

These four girls are totally cool! I have kept in touch with them since camp. Lizz, Katherine, and Bekah are sisters, and the blond girl is named Jackie. Bekah was my bed buddy, and one night we stayed up until three in the morning talking. We all hung out and became close.

My pals Katrina and Mariah hanging out in the Girls' Cabin (Dr. Gardner's Cabin). We talked, played cards, and shared a bunch of candy. (We were all a little sunburned by this point.)

This is Jesse Wade Jones-Blair, the coolest councilor at camp. ;) We talked all throughout camp and "penguin danced" at random times :). He is really sweet and we have talked a lot and hung out since camp. Jesse played the guitar for the talent show on the final night in which we presented to the board who helped make camp possible. That is his Gibson Les Paul, basically the nicest kind of guitar you can get.

Here are some of the board members, including the mayor of Blackfoot.

For another act, some camp members performed Jump On It.

This is where all of the girls from camp, including me, got up to perform Pat's Move, which she did while driving us over to the boys' cabin in the van.
Here is a picture of most of the camp members on the last night. By the way, we played games in our free time such as Ride that Pony, Little Sally Walker, Do You Love Your Neighbor, etc. But the game that I was the best at, was also my least favorite: Honey, Do You Love Me? In this game, you basically do whatever you can to get someone to smile or laugh. No one could crack me. And I had some major stuff pulled, someone cat crawled, I got a ganster routine, a French routine, many sweet nothings whispered in my ear, and much more. One of the best was done by Kyle (the guy in the green). He came and picked me up off my seat onto his lap, and he serenaded me with "You are My Sunshine". Kyle would even try to crack me when we were not playing the game. But no one succeeded. Twice I left to get a drink of water, and I was being called back in out two seconds later, because someone else wanted to try. It was crazy!!!

These are pictures of everyone packing up and saying goodbye.

Ethan D., Kathryn, Ethan R., Kyle, and Josie (in the background)

Nate (the guy who flipped my tube over on the river), Braxton (without a mustache), and Kathryn

Ryan, Jacob, Kathryn, Ethan R. (in the back), and Morgan (who had a crush on me)

This camp was amazing! I learned a lot and met a bunch of incredible people. We became really close in just a week and are still good friends.

On the way home, I got to write in the Camp Journal. You get to write in it once camp is over or almost over, so you can share what you have learned with future campers. That is kind of neat. I got to read some of the past entries, and you can see what a great organization BBCYC is.

This was our video project that we presented to the board. We wanted to show what we had learned at camp. We wrote "I can achieve..." and filled in what we knew we could achieve from attending this camp.

Check out this video: BBCYC Youth Summer Camp 2008