This summer, more than 5,000 kids will attend a Tennessee 4-H camp. University of Tennessee Extension operates three camps, each offering dozens of cool experiences. Clover Camping made fun by the most important activity of all, meeting new people, building skills, courage, and friendships. Hello, I'm Charles Denny.
This is Agcast, brought to you by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Alphabetically from archery to zip lining, and dozens of other activities, 4-H camps are a staple of summer for thousands of Tennessee kids. Here at the Clyde Austin Center in Greenville, kids fill their day on the water, in the water, coming down a 130-foot water slide, and creating things by hand, or touching with their hands like a friendly snake in the Wildlife Center. Cafeteria-style fun, campers Hannah Bryant and Jacob Johnson say there's tons of choices here.
It's fun. What makes it fun? You get to make human race. I like the pool.
I like the pool. I like the ball. I was pretty fun. What else?
Raffle range. Muscle loading. Pretty cool. Tennessee 4-H offers camps at three locations, Crossville, Columbia, and Greenville.
And they're STEM programming at Lone Oaks Farm in Hardeman County. Each location has its own unique features, but all share one particular goal, for kids to make new friends. That's priority one here, encouraging campers to meet each other, to get off their phones and abandon video screens, and have face-to-face relationships. Campor Alex McKinney.
My favorite part of the camp has to be everybody. It's just that we're all here and we're all having fun. It's kind of like a bonding time. One of the cool things to do at Greenville is hang with staffer J.R.
Arnold. He operates the wildlife in fossil rooms, and even takes kids stargazing at night. We have a museum's quality fossil room. I've collected for 25 years and brought things here.
I've got people to donate. We have full-size replicas of T-Rex, Megalodon, Mastodon, things like that, things that can get up close. The big thing about the fossil room is it's hands on. And going there, put their hands on dinosaur eggs, touch dinosaur bones, and not a lot of places they get to do that.
When they come to the wildlife room, they call it a snake. We'll go down to our spring, catch salamanders, like I said. A lot of kids, they live in urban areas, they don't get a chance to get out and do these things that we did as kids. Austin Center Director Scottie-Filler says variety is key to a great camp agenda.
It's unbelievable the experience that kids get to have in the kind of camp. It's just mind-blowing how much stuff they can get into. The new experience, friendships they make for a lifetime, just a safe environment to go outside and actually put their hands on stuff instead of just being in the house a lot of times. Filler says no need for parents to worry.
Camps are safe, inspected, and well-supervised. The center is actually inspected by the ACA camp and all the 4-H centers in Tennessee. We go through the accreditation process where we actually get to have an outside party come in and they check everything. That's what we want to, just to make sure everything can be the best it can be for the kids for the coming in.
Safety-wise, health-related issues. We try to nip those in the boat. We have a full-time nurse during the summertime. It's here with the children.
We also have the health inspector state health inspector comes in and make sure everything is being done properly. With the kids coming to camp, we always have team leaders, we have adult leaders and agents that come with the kids. And they stay with those kids all the time, chaperoning them, and we actually have one adult and one team for eight campers. Suzy Thied from Severe County is one of those adult volunteers working to make the experience great for kids.
We have every eight students. We have a volunteer. We have make sure our ratio is where it needs to be. So if we have eight boys, we have a male leader assigned to them.
And our parents just feel secure and knowing that their students will be watched, whatever is going on. And we emphasize that in our training and then as well as when we have our parent meeting in our counties. For so many of our children, it's the first time away from mom, dads, parents, grandparents, guardians, and it's just life skills. Some of them will learn to use a broom.
At the first time at camp, they sleep all alone, they make beds. But last year, especially, we had the opportunity for at least four campers to learn to swim. They try food they've never tried, they play games they've never played. Suzy accompanied UT Extension agent Glen Turner, who's been coming to camp more than 30 years.
Camp just provides kids a great opportunity to explore some things they don't normally get to do, maybe canoe or fish, maybe make an item at woodworking. You know, a lot of kids don't have that opportunity to start a project and then finish it. A kid that doesn't know how to swim, you know, has an opportunity to one-on-one with lifeguards for three days and go home with better swimming skills. Just from a camp setting, you think of going to camp, but you don't think of an air condition dining hall, you don't think of an air condition cabin setting.
Just great facilities that are up to date. That's echoed by Camp Stafford-Greg Fae, the facilities at Austin are top of the line. We are extremely blessed to have the facilities we have, the support from the State University are fantastic. We have a large rec hall, we've got a full-scale dining hall, we have about 401 beds here and all of our buildings are air conditions.
It's a great facility for kids to stay in. We've got a large pool with a 130 foot long water slide on it. Kids really enjoy that all summer long, it's a great place for them to be and a great place for them to go and stay cool during the summer. 4-H camp is also a time to learn independence.
Sarah Smith is with UT Extension in McMend County and staying a week at the Austin Center. I haven't had very much homesickments, I've been, you know, going and doing and the different things here at the camp they really love. We just have had such a good time and they are really maturing and doing things on their own. So that's what I really hope that they can stick with, that they can do things.
The children really do enjoy that they are getting to make their own beds and, you know, get up and get their stuff together and get to the events on time. So they do enjoy having that responsibility on themselves. Tennessee 4-H Camps also offer programming during the school year, get more information online or from the UT Extension office in York County. In the meantime, 4-H Summer Camp 2020 is already in the planning stages, from basketball to woodworking.
Kids can find an activity with just about every letter of the alphabet. And that includes an H for head, heart, hands and health. Thanks for listening, I'm Charles Denny. For more real life solutions provided by the UT Institute of Agriculture, go to our website at ag.tenacy.edu.