Sign up early for Summer Nature Camp at Lowe-Volk Park

GALION — The Crawford Park District opened up registration for Summer Nature Camp Sessions on Thursday at the Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center.

The sign ups begin annually on March 1, and always draw a large crowd of parents anxious to get their children signed up before the open spaces fill.

Nature Camp at Lowe-Volk Park started when the Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center opened its doors n 2003. Attendance in the first couple of years was minimal, but has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 15 summers.

“This will be my 12th year at the helm,” says park district naturalist Josh Dyer. “My first year, there was not one week that was full. In my second year we started to need waiting lists.”

In the years to come, Dyer increased camp sizes from 16 to 20 kids in order to accommodate the need they were seeing from the community. Currently, each session of Nature Camp has grown to a size of 32 kids with a smaller waiting list than previous years.

“The kids are able to develop personal skills as well as fine- and gross-motor skills in their time at Nature Camp,” Dyer said. “Walking through the woods is not like a walk on the sidewalk. Climbing over logs, stepping over branches … they develop what I like to call ‘woods feet’, which is being able to walk through the woods without falling!”

Kids attending Nature Camp are exposed to a wide variety of experiences. Hiking and fishing, outdoor safety. Throw in a chance to learn more about animals found in the outdoors means there will be something fun for everything among the topics covered in every week-long session.

“We see a lot of kids who return each year, not just from Galion and the surrounding area,” said Dyer.

Dyer said they have seen kids from Lexington, Shelby and Columbus.

Lowe-Volk secretary Patti Gervais brings her grandsons from Strongsville to Nature Camp every summer, and another family has visited from Chicago every summer since their kids were five.

Campers can be registered for Nature Camp during business hours at the Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center, 2401 Ohio 598, just north of Galion.

For information, visit the park district website at http://www.crawfordparkdistrict.org/