CAMP LAUGH A LOT

Many things are special about Camp Laugh A Lot, including where it takes place. Camp takes place in the beautiful Black Hills, a sacred place to the Lakota people. This area, almost 100 miles from the Reservation, was excluded from the Reservation when boundaries were redrawn. As a result, Lakota children rarely get to visit what is their Tribe's most sacred area. Camp Laugh A Lot provides an important opportunity for children to get to know the Black Hills.

Learning About Nature and Caring for the Environment

Camp Laugh A Lot offers many learning opportunities, especially related to nature, wildlife, and the environment. Campers study wildlife and plants, and learn indigenous knowledge about these with the help of Tribal elders and wildlife professionals who volunteer to share their knowledge. These learning activities are fun, but also provide an important foundation on which to build a practical knowledge base about the environment. Across the country, environmental issues are highlighted on tribal lands. It is important for Native American youth to appreciate the natural environment, and to become aware and informed of environmental issues as they grow up.

Camp Promotes Volunteering by Campers and Other Tribal Members

Giving kids the chance to go to camp is special, but equally special is the opportunity Camp Laugh A Lot gives people to give of themselves. Camp Counselors, most of whom are Tribal members, volunteer their time. The bus driver, like the Camp Counselors, donates his time to act as a Counselor in addition to being the bus driver. Tribal elders help organize for Camp and share indigenous knowledge about native plants and animals with the children. Volunteering by Tribal members lifts spirits and inspires people to be involved in other positive, self-help initiatives. Indeed, part of the mission of Camp Laugh A Lot is, through camp, to promote volunteerism by Tribal members as a way of encouraging self-help.

Through their own volunteer efforts, which they undertake in exchange for the opportunity to go to Camp, and through observing the volunteer efforts of Camp Counselors and others involved in Camp, campers are encouraged to adopt an approach of self-help and of taking initiative.

About The Group Volunteer Activity

All children who sign up for Camp are expected to participate in a volunteer activity. They may choose to participate in a group volunteer project organized by Camp Laugh A Lot, or in a volunteer project of their own.

This year the group volunteer project will be for the children to help elders collect edible and medicinal plants, and to use the edible plants collected to prepare a healthy meal for the elders. The following day, the children, under the supervision of elders familiar with the preparation of traditional foods made from native plants, will prepare and serve the meal in collaboration with the Elderly Meals Program at the CAP office in the communities involved. Children will break into small groups for the project with different groups responsible for food preparation, table decoration, serving, cleaning up, writing out the recipes as they were prepared, and making attractive menus for the meal in both Lakota and English. Throughout the activity, both during the collection day as well as the meal preparation day, interactions between children and elders are encouraged.

Team building activities form a part of many Camp activities. Campers work in teams on treasure hunts that use nature-related clues (and where the treasure is something useful for further nature study). As an example of a past team building exercise at Camp, campers learned to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) and engaged in team orientation activities using GPS with the guidance of a volunteer Camp Counselor and Tribal member trained in GPS.