Youth center tradition Petroleum Valley Summer Camp wraps up
FAIRVIEW TWP — The Petroleum Valley Summer Camp made a splash as it drew to a close.
On Wednesday afternoon, teams of yelling campers flailed away with paddles as they raced canoes across one of two ponds at the Petroleum Valley Youth Center.
As with many events at the summer day camp, the races were also meant to teach a lesson — in this case, using math to figure out the quickest way to get all team members from one side of the pond to the other.
The camp wraps up Friday after the traditional all-night campout that began Thursday night. There are activities such as capture the flag in the dark and very little sleep, according to Morgan Waldroup and Sydney Turner, two of the three camp co-directors.
The third co-director is Don Markel.The summer camp has been in existence for the past 35 years. A group of local church leaders bought the former Penreco Employee Park in 1985.The 130-acre site has been used by generations of campers. It has two fishing ponds, two pavilions, basketball and volleyball courts, hiking trails, an octagonal pit for playing a game called gaga, a recreational building and an amphitheater.Waldroup, 21, said, “My dad came up here and my uncle Matt. He's 36 now.” She herself had been attending the camp for five years.
“When I came up here, I was in fourth grade. There was a little kids' program and I went into that before I was allowed to stay the whole day,” she said.The facility is open to day campers ranging in age from those going into third grade to those entering ninth grade. This year, there are 110 registered campers, with around 60 showing up any one day. The three camp co-directors and seven counselors oversee each day's batch of campers.The camp runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, with early drop-off and late pickup times available to accommodate parents' work schedules.Children get a free breakfast and lunch through Karns City High School.Turner said, “We usually open the first or second week of June and end the first or second week of August. That's eight weeks throughout the end of July this year.”Campers come from Butler, Karns City, Allegheny-Clarion Valley and Armstrong County.Of course, this year in addition to the usual theme weeks and gaga pit sessions, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought some changes in the camp routine.Waldroup said counselors wear masks around the campers, hand sanitization stations are set up around the camp and the youths are divided into 25-member groups.Turner said, “We prepared our COVID-19 plan by the end of May.”
Waldroup said the parents had minimal concerns about the pandemic.But field trips to places like Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center were scrapped.Campers did take one field trip to Kittanning's Belmont Pool, but Turner and Waldroup said the pool was mostly empty on the day of their visit.But campers are still using the gaga pit and basketball court, building forts in the woods, fishing and boating on the camp's ponds and enjoying themed survivor, carnival, water and science weeks.Waldroup said, “We are a Christian-based camp. We have two devotionals a week. There are object lessons and science experiments to get them thinking about God.”Community churches send members who make up the camp's board of directors. The camp is funded by grants, donations from member churches and donations from the community.Adelin File, 11, of Karns City was ready to start the canoe races Wednesday.“I feel confident. I like going to the lake,” she said, adding she was looking forward to Thursday's camp-out.Brody Eiler, 9, of Bruin was a first-time camper.“I didn't know this was out here, and now I'm here mostly every day,” he said.
