• Camp Bahia
• East Bay School of the Arts
• Camp Elmwood
• LeConte School

For the parent who was inquiring about Camp Bahia, JUST SAY NO. My 12-year old daughter attended Camp Bahia last summer and was bored to tears. The camp takes place at Merritt College which is a beautiful campus. They had such sports activities as golf, horse back riding, swimming (Lake Temescal), and baseball, to name a few. They also offered a few academic courses such as Math and English. This sounds wonderful except, the kids were not able to choose the activities they wanted to participate in. In addition, if you wanted your child to be able to choose his/her schedule, they charged you more for the privilege. According to my daughter, the classes were unorganized and access to the various sports activities were just as unorganized. They changed activities everyday so there was no continuity for the children. This could be attributed to the fact that last year was their inaugural year and they just didn't have a clue. Perhaps things will run smoother for the program this year.

Some of the plusses, transportation to and from Camp Bahia was included in the price. They had two pick-up points in Richmond. The 1st pick-up point was Hilltop Richmond YMCA, and the 2nd pick-up point was the YMCA in Richmond across the street from Coronado school. They have partial scholarships. You may want to check to see what is available.

Camp Elmwood

Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 14:43:33 -0700
From: Susan 

Here is a local 1 week day camp in Berkeley in August that
my kids have gone to for the past two summers.  It is a
very fun experience.  It would have been great if it was
for a longer time but the man who runs it, takes off a week
of vacation from his other job in order to provide this
camp for the kids.

NAME OF CAMP:	Camp Elmwood

LOCATION:	St. John's Presbyterian Church
		2727 College Avenue
		Berkeley,  CA.  94705
		(510)845-2656

DATE:		Monday through Friday, August 19-23, 1996

TIME:		9:30 AM to 3:30 PM 

COST:		$55.00/$45 2nd child

AGE GROUP:	5 to 15 years old

ACTIVITIES:	Volleyball, basketball, ping pong and pool tables, 
		lawn games, art, music, drama, cooking, & arts & crafts.  
		Swim Trip.  Projects to help others.  A chance to talk 
		about right and wrong and to think about the decisions 
		we have to make in our lives.  Each camper will have 
		the opportunity to be a leader and to learn from others.

PLEASE CALL THE ABOVE TELEPHONE NUMBER FOR REGISTRATION APPLICATION 
OR MORE INFORMATION.	

----------------------------

From: Ginger

My kids attended Camp Elmwood this summer and I recommend it highly. They
really do mean it when they say "Each camper will have the opportunity to 
be a leader and to learn from others." The kids plan and prepare a BBQ on the last
day for parents and community members, and then put on a show after dinner to
display what they've done for the week. My 13-year-old son was a counselor,
for which he was paid $50 for the week! He organized and taught hocky
classes and helped to put on a demo game at the parents' BBQ, 
guiding the little kids through their paces. But the remarkable feat was my
11-year-old, a known troublemaker in some circles, who taught some younger 
kids at camp a few magic tricks and then put on a show with them for the 
parents. This is the kind of thing that really gets a mom excited about a 
summer camp! This camp is just one week in the summer, put together almost
entirely by a Berkeley lawyer, Fred Harvey, in collaboration with his
church, St. John's Presbyterian (though the camp is non-religious in nature.)

From: Ginger 
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996

East Bay School of the Arts

This is a great program for K-8 aged children. In addition to after-school
art programs during the regular school year, EB School of the Arts operates 
two 3-week camps during June and July at St. Mary's High School (off Hopkins 
in North Berkeley.) This is my first experience with them and I only wish I
had checked into them before! My 10-year-old son has done sports programs
in summers past, and just never really enjoyed them. This year he is having
a great time and can't wait to get to camp (8:30-4:30 every day). 

Kids choose 3-4 classes they want to take; each morning they attend
their classes, and afternoons are free when they can sit in on any of
the activities offered. My son, who hates everything except for fire,
sugar, grisly comic books, and assorted ways for getting into trouble, 
is completely entranced with this camp. He is taking magic lessons (can
now pull quarters from my ear and do card tricks), video (they are
acting in, filming, and editing "The Pebble" which I hear is a
take-off on "The Rock"), photography (they made a pinhole camera and
developed all their own pictures), cartooning (big attraction here is
swear words are occasionally allowed in comic strips), and drawing and
painting (when I ask about this one, he says "I forget" - oh well,
can't win 'em all).

There are many other classes offered such as jewelry making, toy making,
wood carving, as well as intensive courses in acting, music, dancing,
and painting. I expected to see mainly girls at this camp but there 
are as many boys as girls due I guess to the wide variety of classes 
offered. I'm already looking forward to next summer.