Et cetera : NCCC's Maple 5: A Courageous Camp

Jamie arm wrestles one of her campers and loses

Maple 5 explore a cave for their training as camp counselors at Camp Courageous

NCCC's Maple 5: A Courageous Camp

By: Madeline Tome

AmeriCorps NCCC’s (National Civilian Community Corps) Maple 5 is helping out in Monticello, Iowa at Camp Courageous. The team is serving as camp counselors for children and adults with disabilities who attend the camp during the summer and fall.

The team starts off every week with a new group of campers, as well as a new set of counselors to work side by side with. Every Monday, each group of counselors greets their campers and follows through their own scheduled week of activities. These activities consist of a variety of options that the camp offers, including the super zip, canoeing, the burma bridge, camping and cooking out!

Camp Courageous is run entirely off of donations, so volunteers are especially needed throughout the year to keep the camp running, as well as to make the camper waiting list shorter. Maple 5's service at Camp Courageous allows the camp to accept more camper applications per season, due to more counselors working.

Maple 5 held a community service day during this project. The team invited the community of Monticello to attend a day of path maintenance and sign building, both of which were able to make Camp Courageous more accessible and easier to navigate around to the campers, counselors, and visitors that attend the camp daily. The community service day had a great turn out, and was very much appreciated by Camp Courageous staff.

The NCCC team has also completed two other independent service projects (ISPs) so far while working in Monticello. The first project was gardening behind a church at Feed Iowa First in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The second project was another gardening project at Matthew 25, a community organic garden, also in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.