Uniting America Summer Camp well on its way!

On Wednesday afternoon the Northwest Cook Leaders (NWCL), a group of concerned social service coordinators and community members, held the first info session for what will be a volunteer ran summer camp in Rolling Meadows. At the beginning of the year, the group had decided to focus in on an area of high need to provide after school tutoring services to the neighborhood children. This area, also known as the East Apartments or El Ranchito, used to house a thriving community center with a multitude of non-profits. Yet, due to the economic downturn and local political dissent, many of the service providers pulled out without the city financial support.

As the NWCL began planning for the fall tutoring, the idea of a summer camp only made sense. It would provide a foreseeable account of the amount of students in the area as well as begin to build relationships with community members and potential volunteers.

The meeting:

On Wednesday we held the meeting at Harper College. I’ve spent the last month reaching out to as many students and student clubs as possible and one specific club was well represented, Latinos Unidos! Thanks to the help of the current and future president, Brenda Escutia and Julio Hernandez, we drew in a crowd of over 20 potential volunteer camp counselors.

We discussed the need to bring a summer camp to the area, how it would be ran, and what activities we would like to host. Many of the potential counselors had close ties to the area and were really eager to help. We also split into smaller groups to give everyone the opportunity to voice their opinion and discuss a few of the items in greater detail.

We plan on hosting one more information meeting in the next month.