Summer Camps Offer Fun for All Youth

Whether it be for little kids or big kids, water babies or artsy teens, parks and playgrounds are offering a splash of fun, as well as classes and camps, this summer throughout the San Fernando Valley.

For Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department facilities--where between 5,000 and 7,000 Valley youngsters are enrolled--the day after the Fourth of July meant the first day of summer programs, according to Valley Region Supt. Olga Singer.

Most parks and playgrounds provide extended care programs on top of the 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. scheduled activities at day camps. “That way parents on their way to work can drop off their kids and pick them up as late as 6 o’clock,” Singer said.

Community colleges, YMCA/YWCAs and other Valley cities are offering their own specialized summer programs.

Through the Pierce College extension program, Sharon Cort is teaching weekly guitar lessons to children ages 8 to 11 and a vaudeville class where the youngsters will dance, sing and perform comedy sketches in the style of W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers.

At Lupin Hill Elementary School, the city of Calabasas will have tykes ages 4 to 5 kicking and punching away in a two-month-long Shotokan karate class.

Singer, of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, said she’s happy to report that, despite the Jan. 17 quake, all summer day camps are filled to capacity.

However, filling the camps was no easy task, said Wendy Wilkinson of the Van Nuys / Sherman Oaks Recreation Center, where the camp coordinators “struggled (to get) up to 110 (participants) a week before the camp started.” The turnout was surprisingly slow considering the first field trip will be to Raging Waters.

Normally, Wilkinson said the camp is filled with a waiting list of more than 50 children well before opening day.

At Shadow Ranch Recreation Center in West Hills, a summer day camp for preschoolers and children up to the age of 12 is being offered. About 30 children will spend five days a week for seven weeks participating in arts and crafts projects, water games and field trips.

It is the field trips that 10-year-old Rhiammon Walker said she’s excited about. “We’re going to Magic Mountain, Malibu Beach and the Reseda pool,” said Rhiammon, who was at first hesitant about going to a summer day camp because she was afraid there wouldn’t be any kids her age there.

Samantha Walker, 8, said she especially enjoys learning new games like “carems,” which involves scooting black and red checkers across a board with a junior version of a billiards cue.

“It’s just fun,” said Brian Woolf, 9, as he wiped the sand off his face, having just nose-dived into the sandbox from the swings. “You get to do things instead of watching the TV and going ‘Duhhhh.’ ”