We believe in nurturing connections with nature at an early age and one of the ways we achieve this is through Camp Odyssey! We’re excited to share that this popular nature-based summer day camp program will be back in 2022 following a very successful 2021 season.
Camp Odyssey offers weeklong day camps and single-day camps in Kimberley and Cranbrook during the summer months. The program offers the community a safe, structured, and fun outdoor environment for children of various ages. This year, we had 4 week-long camps staffed by three educators. A new camp for 5-8 year-olds took place in Marysville’s Lion’s Park. In addition, we ran three camps for 7-12 year-olds—two at the Kimberley Nature Park and one out of the Cranbrook Alliance Church, which offered easy access to the Cranbrook Community Forest. Each camp involved a diverse range of nature-based activities from walking and whittling to painting rocks and building shelters.
Running camps for a younger cohort was new for us this year and allowed us to better tailor activities and walking distances to the younger group. “It was well attended for its first year,” says Program Coordinator & Camp Lead, Kim Urbaniak. “Parent feedback was positive, saying the amount of walking compared to activity time was great.”
The other groups were also well-attended despite uncontrollable circumstances. “We struggled with forest fire smoke in the air and needed to reduce the walking time, primarily for the safety of our instructors,” Urbaniak reported at the end of the season. “Having KIS [Kimberley Independent School] as a backup location made this possible, and parents were understanding of the reduced hiking time.”
Urbaniak went on to say that overall, “Camp Odyssey was very successful in 2021. In addition to the ever-growing registration numbers, we were successful in receiving two grants. Financials are in the black this year, as was our goal. Parents continue to ask for more weeks, so we will look into expanding again in 2022.”
Thank you to Kim Urbaniak, Rory Smith and Brooke Leyenhorst, for making Camp Odyssey such a great success this year. We’d also like to thank the parents and children who stuck with us and made this program such a blast.
We look forward to bringing Camp Odyssey back for summer 2022! Learn all about the program here.
