Noozhawk’s ParentNooz Camp Guide is officially here and we made sure to make things easy when planning your child’s summer!
To give parents the tools to help make informed decisions about Summer Camps for their kids in Santa Barbara, Noozhawk has conducted a series of interviews with representatives of local programs for this year’s Summer Camp Guide.
In this interview, Noozhawk sat down with Joseph Natale, Director of the D’Arezzo Center to learn more about their summer camps here in Santa Barbara.
D’Arezzo Center
Question: What is the name of your Summer Camp or Program and what is its mission?
Answer: Santa Barbara Creative Education Summer Camp Mission is to Guide Youth to Innovate, Learn, Teach, Study, Create, Design, Compose, Collaborate, Share, Explore, Act, Perform, Participate, and Appreciate Life and One Another.
Q: Describe the activities involved in your camp or program.
A: Each Week Youth will have the opportunity to participate in each of the following activities: Sports, Games, Art, Music, Theater, Video/Photography, Science/Nature and Academic Tutoring if requested. Our Camps are eclectic in nature, guided by experts in each of the various activity areas. We allow the children to choose areas of focus where they spend the majority of their time, yet offer them opportunities to try areas they may not yet have delved into. Our sessions run weekly. Returning participants are able to progress to higher levels of areas of focus, or try out new activities. We operate somewhat like a carnival of activities where the children are able to move from station to station in an organized fashion. This keeps them interested and engaged, usually moving from activity to activity with friends, new and old!
Q: What is the age range for children in your camp or program?
A: Our program is for ages 6 to 14. We suggest grouping by age, but if siblings who are close in age choose to be together we support that as well.
Q: How many years has the camp been running? Do you get a lot of return campers?
A: Santa Barbara Creative Education (also known as D’Arezzo Creative Education) runs year round. We focus more on academics during the school year with enrichment in the afternoons and the arts and sports activities in the summer. We are beginning our second decade overall, and our 4th year locally in Santa Barbara where the Director and Founder, Joseph Natale lives and grew up. We have grown exponentially over the last 4 years in Santa Barbara and typically operate at our daily capacity.
Q: What protocols does your camp have in place due to COVID-19? What is different about your camp this year?
A: We have worked closely with the Santa Barbara Public Health Department to ensure that we are following COVID-Safe Protocols. We have completed the Self Certification Program, and had zero incidents with our program while operating daily, in-person, predominantly outdoors since September 2020. We have learned new ways that are fun and intriguing with out children integrating social distancing and masking when required. We have incorporated teaching good hygiene as a way of life.
Q: What goals do you have for kids participating in your camp or program?
A: We provide a safe, healthy, fun, social experience for children from our community. We offer opportunities for children to try out a variety of activities, discover individual interests and enjoy growing in them. With so much isolation and screen time over the last year, our goal is to provide an opportunity for fun social interaction while building upon on board skills learning new ones. We have Spanish speaking staff so we are able to serve our community at large.
Q: What makes your camp or program unique?
A: We have learned that children get bored very quickly doing the same thing for long periods of time (other than video games). The way we have set up our activities so the children can rotate through them with friends, or focus on the activities they love the most, gives them a sense of freedom and choice. Many camps are focused on honing in on one skill whether it be a sport, singing, playing an instrument, art, etc. Our program offers a unique opportunity with our carnival of activities approach.
Q: How do you hire staff for your camp and when hired, is there a training that they have to complete before the camp begins?
A: All of our staff are recruited based on their individual education and experience in one of our core activity areas and their love for children. We train all of our staff according to the Santa Barbara Creative Methodology. That methodology focuses on seeking out understanding and sensitivity to the personality of each child and designing our programs around the individual rather than shaping the individual to fit our programs. We teach respecting the value of the core and soul of each child, supporting and building who they are. The majority of our staff work year round so are already seasoned.
Q: What is the best part, in your opinion, about your camp or program?
A: The best part of Santa Barbara Creative Education is that we love, respect and care about our children as we provide them an exceptional experience in a wide variety of creative activities in a social and safe environment.
Q: In what ways is your camp or program educational?
A: Santa Barbara Creative Education takes a wholistic approach. We emphasize that applying discipline to all learning from hopscotch to science empowers. We teach that understanding and incorporating reading, writing, math, science, and even history through all our activities, putting them through our “creative, artistic and athletic” individual and internal machine, integrates a foundation of knowledge while having fun. For example, youth come out of our program understanding the mathematics of music in a way that enables them to write and produce music creatively. The same results with acting, art, video production and sports.
Q: What is the price range of your camp and do you offer scholarships?
A: Our basic fees are based on $12.50 per hour which equates to $250 per week for a 4 hour per day session. We offer extended ours for early drop off and late pick up if needed and also the Lunch Gap period from 12PM-1PM. We do fundraisers for scholarships and as funds are available participants are encouraged to apply. Our goal is to say “no” to no one!
Click here to learn more information about Santa Barbara Creative Education summer camps!