Inspiring kids for 50 years
They may not go canoeing or learn to tie knots, but the kids lucky enough to go Smithsonian Summer Camp are happy campers, indeed.
This summer marks the 50th anniversary of Smithsonian Summer Camp. The anniversary happens to coincide with Brigitte Blachere’s 20th year at Smithsonian Associates. She is a program manager and the de facto director of SSC.
In the two decades since she joined the staff, camp has expanded in size and scope many times over, she notes. “When I first got here, camp was a couple weeks long” and served approximately 200 kids, she recalls. This year, SSC will host about 2,000 campers over nine weeks, now through August.
With themes ranging from space to art to history to world cultures, “our camps bring the Smithsonian to life,” Blachere says. From 9 a.m.to 4:30 p.m., “kids can immerse themselves in fun subjects. We may not have a pool or horses {like some camps do}, but we have the Smithsonian and all of its riches.”
Regardless of a given camp’s theme, campers move about the Mall and beyond, to Smithsonian and non-Smithsonian sites alike, from NASA Goddard Space Center to Antietam Battlefield. For example, the kids attending Space Camp don just hunker down at the Air and Space Museum; they might visit the moon exhibit at Natural History, paintings of astronauts at the Portrait Gallery and the Space Shuttle at Udvar-Hazy. “We take the campers to all the different museums and help them make connections.”
Most camps run one week, but a few two-week intensive camps are offered for older kids who want to do a deep dive into, say, watercolor painting or American pop music.
Each summer, thousands of children taking part in Smithsonian Summer Camp enjoy behind-the-scenes access to curators, researchers and other staff who make history, art and culture come alive using the Institution’s artifacts, labs and lawns. (Photos courtesy Smithsonian Associates)
Blachere’s own children have participated in SSC since they became eligible to do so at age 5 (the oldest campers are 9th– graders, or roughly age 14). This summer, her daughter, Yara, has graduated to Youth Teaching Assistant status, a sort of counselor-in-training role for which high-schoolers earn volunteer credit. Every camp has two YTAs and two instructors.
Adina McGee, a graphic designer at Freer-Sackler, parents two youngsters who’ve also attended SSC since they were five (“they’re kind of Smithsonian born and raised”). In a bid to give campers a taste of the wide range of museum jobs available, some visit McGee’s department in the museum each year in a camp called Museum Makers (Note to staff: Blachere is always on the lookout for SI professionals who would be willing to describe their work to campers).
Like Blachere, McGee has a daughter who is a YTA and a son who is still a camper. As the three commuted together to the Smithsonian the other day, 15-year-old Liliana shared some sisterly advice with Aidan, 12, which their mom happened to overhear.
“She said, ‘Don’t take camp for granted,’” Adina recalls. “’You will miss it when it’s gone.’ I took it to mean that she understood that the behind-the-scenes experiences you have [at SSC] are not replicated in the real world. I’m glad she recognized what a gift this camp has been.”
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Posted: 30 July 2019
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