CReW Girls

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Well, I am not so good at keeping up with writing and now that Robert wrote the evening of the first program, I look really bad

In June, I ran a smaller version of our Youth Program for the kids from the Youth Center in Alexandria. We did an introduction to kayaking one evening last summer, it was a success and I wanted to do more for those kids; so we presented a program to the Youth Center and were able to run it with the help of the Optimist Club. It was in the late afternoon, after school, with the help of Zachary and Emily. They help us on and off the water throughout the summer, they help me pack all the boats and make sure we don’t forget anything. Zachary also helps me motivate the boys at times, I just ask him to do something cool on the water Cheryl joined us too, after work and helped me repack everything!

The Youth Center is located in the middle of town by a beach on a small lake, very nice setting! Unfortunately, when the weather gets warm, the water quality is not always something you can count on so that is why I ran the program in June before it gets too warm. Of course, the down side of it not being too warm was that during the first 2 classes, we were freezing. Thanks to Level 6 and a few private donors, we have enough warm paddling clothing to keep everyone comfortable but it is not very conducive to a wet exit So we just kept the skirts off and proceeded to have fun and learn to paddle. I had a maximum of 6 kids and the program filled every week and it was mostly the same kids for the entire program so most of them completed a Flatwater A course

On the last day, the weather was on our side and everyone wanted to get wet so we did the wet exits. After the first one, the kids wanted to keep doing them so we did and swam around with the boats a lot or just tried to get back in

We might be back in Alexandria in August for an introduction to kayaking for the older kids and we will definitely work on having a program there again next year! I had a blast and the smiles and enthusiasm of the kids are contagious!

Last night, we had our first class of the Youth Program in Cornwall (you can read about it here: www.worldkayakblogs.com/crewkids/) and it was a great evening! I am looking forward to tonight and the rest of the summer!!

Sylvie