By Sam Stovel
THUNDER BAY – LIVING – Today was the final day of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! It was a very magical day for all of our camper and volunteers. The day was filled with colour, tears, dancing and fireworks. It was a busy day on-site with so many smiling faces and excitement.
We started off our day with another much loved late wakeup so we had enough energy to finish the night off with our big dance party. With the traditional British bangers and mash to start our day off for breakfast, we were all ready for the busy day ahead!
After breakfast, we enjoyed adding a little splash of colour to white socks with tie-dye. Some of our campers chose to tie-dye their own white t-shirts (sorry moms and dads). With so many artistic tie-dye designs, our campers will be sure to have the coolest socks out there!
With some free time before lunch, our campers enjoyed playing board games in the ‘Great Hall’, or heading over to the Craft Shack to make friendship bracelets. Since we had a busy afternoon scheduled, it was time to have some lunch to restore our energy for our afternoon adventures.
For lunch, our campers got creative with preparing their own sub sandwiches. Not only did they get to enjoy their own sandwich creation, but we all enjoyed a delicious piece of cake. We were all very fortunate to have this delicious colourful cake prepared by Shirley from our kitchen team.
With our last toes-up time for the week, everyone was well rested and ready to continue the magical day. Since we were not able to finish our Tri-Wizard Tournament on Monday, we finished our last activity to determine the winner. We enjoyed playing a game of Horcrux Hunt, which was a scavenger hunt where all participants had to find Harry Potter-related objects on site (which were hidden) as well as work together as a team to be very creative for bonus house points. Two cabins ending up tying the tournament which meant we had to have a tie breaker. The tie breaker chosen was the mystical game of Capture the Snitch – a magical version of capture the flag, and a camp favourite. Both houses competed with the help of other campers and volunteers to locate the Snitch on either side of the castle.
With a very close game, Cabin 10 was awarded the Tri-Wizard Cup for outstanding performance and teamwork. Congrats to Cabin 10! Great work to all of our cabin houses; you all did such a great job!
Next, all of our campers and volunteers received their Wizarding World (Harry Potter) log book. The book included cabin house pictures, contact information and autographs. Although there were lots of sore hands from signing the books, campers and volunteers love leaving messages in the log books so each person has a lasting memory of the camp week.
Everyone was very excited when the dinner bell rang, as tonight, our last night, was a camp favourite – TACOS! What could be better than that?
With our tummies full, we were ready for our awards ceremony. All of our volunteer companions created an award for their camper celebrating something about them. Each camper was awarded their own personal award from their awesome companions. Some examples of awards this year included the “Book Worm Award”, the “Hungry Man Award”, and the “Resident Camp DJ”.
Each year, one of our campers gets awarded the Quinten Spirit Award for showing participating actively in camp, trying new things, demonstrating great behavior and/or being a good friend. This year, this award was presented to our camper Lucas who, throughout the week often helped others, befriended and included new campers in activities, and was open to trying new things himself. Congratulations Lucas – you deserve it!
In addition to the camper awards, Camp Quality is very lucky to have two volunteers that have gone above and beyond. We were pleased to award Colleen Craig-Merilainen, our Medical Coordinator, and Rosa Carlino, our Fund Development Coordinator with Volunteer Extraordinaire Awards for 2017. To conclude our awards ceremony, our Director, Ashleigh Quarrell, presented a signed frame to all of our graduate campers this year. We would like to thank Taylor, Quinn, Neave, Jacklyn, Lyndon and Owen for being such a wonderful part of our CQ family throughout the years! We will miss you all next year at camp, but this will not be the last you see of us as now you are part of our CQ alumni family!
With the Yule Ball about to start, our campers and volunteers went to transform into magical wizards (i.e. change into costumes). Everyone arrived to the Ball dressed in their best and ready to get the party started. Thank you to Mike from Partie Sound for coming on out to DJ our Yule Ball. Everyone was moving and grooving to the beats!
Last but not least, we all enjoyed a beautiful fireworks display. Thank you to Lyne and Bob from Fireworks Unlimited for putting on another amazing firework show for all of us.
We created magical memories this week that will last a lifetime.
We already can’t wait for next year’s CQ summer camp!
This is the sixth year that NetNewsLedger.com have hosted the Camp Quality Northwest blog. NetNewsLedger is pleased to support the work of Camp Quality, and the ongoing battle to beat cancer. On a personal note, cancer has taken both of my grandparents, it tried to take my mom, a favourite aunt, and now a favourite uncle. There are few people in Northwestern Ontario who are not impacted by cancer. Together working to support the research and the fight against cancer, we are going to defeat this terrible killer of our friends and family.
When cancer takes on children, it is time for us all to rally to help them.
