Wracking your brain for something fun and interesting for your kids to do this summer? You might not need to look any further than your local humane society.
More and more shelters and humane societies are offering summer day camps for kids of all ages, as a way to get kids involved in the shelter and spread support for the organization’s efforts throughout the community.
Something for Every Age
These camps aren’t about getting free volunteers in to clean cages! Summer camps are well-planned, in-depth programs with specific curriculum that leave children with memorable experiences and an appreciation and compassion for animals.
Developing the programs is a year-round effort, managed by trained humane educators and led by qualified instructors who also undergo specific training.
Depending on the age group, activities during camps range from pet-related crafts to pet care to games, speakers, and more.
Some shelters, for example, help kids connect with resident pets by assigning them one pet throughout the week of camp. The child gets to know the pet, helps with the animal’s care, draws pictures to decorate the pet’s cage, and more.
Younger kids might spend more time playing games and learning about fun animal facts, while older kids may perform age-appropriate duties like giving dogs baths or walking them.
Other shelters offer teenagers career camps where kids get to observe procedures in the shelter’s veterinary clinic and, in some cases, assist with minor care. Other facilities provide high school students “junior trainer” experiences where they receive hands-on instruction for basic dog training.
Summer camps at animal shelters make lasting impressions on many kids. Shelters report that many children return year after year for the camps and to volunteer.
Benefits For Shelters
Camps are fun for the kids, but they also benefit the shelters. With fees typically starting around $150 for a week-long session, camps provide a much needed stream of revenue for the organization.
And, shelters say, connecting with children and their families in this way helps increase donations, adoptions, foster families, and more.
Perhaps one of the most poignant benefits of introducing kids and their families to how a humane society works is to dispel myths about the pets there. There are many families that mistakenly believe shelter pets have behavior or physical problems. While that may be true for some, the majority of these pets are in shelters for reasons that have nothing to do with temperament or health.
Camps offer kids and their families an up-close look at the incredible pets available in animal shelters, rescues, and humane societies across the country.
And yes, some kids wrap up the summer with a new furry family member.
With pressure on parents to continually raise the bar for experiences for their children, summer camps at shelters offer lessons, memories, and a positive impact on the community.
To find out if there are summer camps or other programs for kids in your area, check out Crayons and Collars, a site dedicated to kids and pets. They’ve built a robust database of shelters offering kids’ programs for summer and year round.
Today we’re joining the Blog the Change for Animals because we want to show kids that helping animals in need is not only a cool thing to do, but it can also be lots of fun.
Do you think your kids would enjoy helping out at your local shelter? Please take a moment to share this post to spread the word and let kids everywhere know how fun and easy it is to make a difference!
What a wonderful initiative – that really is a win win situation for people and animals. We need this kind of program in Australia!
WOW! What a great idea! Teaching children from an early age to care for and help animals is a beautiful concept that will definitely bring about a positive change for animals. Great article!
That is an awesome program; if I were a kid again I know I’d be begging my parents to go to that summer camp. As you mention it’s also a great way for the kids to learn about animals and help dispel the myths surrounding shelter pets. I was so saddened to hear that a lot of people in the “millenial” generation believe that there’s something “wrong” with most shelter pets. Great way for the animals to get some great attention and love, and a wonderful experience for the kids.
This is really awesome! Its a great idea and I wish they had this when I was a kid, I would rather be spending time at a shelter than off ice training for figure skating as a kid. I will have to share this post with Rolo’s former shelter as its such a great idea for them to do!
After reopening, my shelter let’s you have your kids birthday parties there with all sorts of activities to learn about rescuing animals. I thought it was a great idea! Love Dolly
What a fantastic idea! I checked the website from your post and there’s a shelter in my city that has a program for kids. This would be something fun to get involved with. Thanks for sharing this!
What a pawsome program ! Purrs
This is a fabulous idea for my kids this summer! My four year old just had a dog come visit his school from a shelter and he’s been asking a lot of questions about it. I’m gonna look into it in our area and see what I can find out. Thanks!
What a great idea for a summer adventure! I will have to see if any of our local shelters have something like this. One of my kids is planning on volunteering with me at one of the shelters as a dog walker.
Thank you for writing about these summer camps for Blog The Change, Christina. I love learning new things in this hop and I have never heard of these camps. What a wonderful idea camps like this are for kids, animals and shelters.
Totally pawsome idea! Dunno have those kids could spend a week with a pet and not cry to bring them home.
This is so cool! I would have loved participating in one of these camps when I was a child. It would be really nice to start kids off with good information about pets too. Education is very important.
This is so cool! I would have jumped on this as a kid. What a great way to get the younger generation involved to help our sweet, shelter animals. Side note: I can’t believe I missed the change for animals post. I need to keep better track of these things!
What a great idea! I saw a group of girls at my local shelter on what must have been the Friday of their spring break. Would be great to see this happen more often!
This is a brilliant, beautiful idea.
Our local SPCA offers a kids camp and it’s just such a cool idea. I would have LOVED that when I was a kid. Not only is it good for the shelters to bring in some young, eager volunteers, but the kids get such great experience and hands on learning. What a great program.
This sounds like a fantastic win-win for kids and animals. My kids are adults but I’m checking the database to see if any are offered in our area anyway so I can recommend it to others or perhaps help out. What a great idea!
It’s a great idea! I think after the summer camp, many dogs will have more chance to be adopted by the kids’ family. Hope more shelters will hold this summer camp. Thank you for sharing!