This week, Maura and myself have been working on promoting the camp, which was originally planned to start next week. Elaina has told us that, due to various factors including her extensive absences prior to our arrival to deal with a death in her family and her current pregnancy, the usual work she would have already done on outreach and establishing camp enrollment has been neglected. Due to this, we have decided not to hold the first week of camp, seeing as there would be no campers to hold in it.
Maura and I spent several afternoons during this week taking flyers promoting the camp to the areas surrounding our location and giving them to families, shops, and simply posting them around in hopes of increasing awareness. While Elaina and Peter do not seem very concerned about this, Maura shares my concern for this major setback. Losing an entire fifth of our program does not seem like a simple change to us.
At this point, we have also been experiencing issues with the city of Albany itself. The city's youth employment program will be providing us with high school age camp counselors to mentor, supervise, and engage with our eventual campers. These counselors will start at their positions next week, yet, as of the fourth of July holiday, we have not been able to get our hands on a list of their names. Without any information on these teens whatsoever, we can only hope they will know to arrive on time Monday for our orientation program.
Albany's meal program for children has also proven to be a hindrance rather than helping hand. The program, which promises to provide breakfast and lunch for summer programs hosting Albany's children, required we attend an entirely banal hour training, during which they repeatedly warned of not to make simple mistakes such as leaving milk out lest we should have our entire program shut down by the city government. It was utterly ridiculous and became a laughing stock for those of us at AUMS.
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