Reef Relief’s Coral Camp

Reef Relief’s Coral Camp

By Emily Bracher Key West High School Intern Writer

 

Reef Relief’s Coral Camp is a summer program that has brought ocean education to the youth of the Florida Keys. Coral Camp spans a nine week period with around 260 kids attending over the course of a summer, which is around 25 kids week. At the camp, kids ages 6-12 learn about subjects like oceanography, coral reefs, fish identification/anatomy, and marine ecosystems. From Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm, they participate in different activities, teaching them about the ocean.

Executive Program Director, Mill McCleary and Assistant Program Director, Alex Risius lead these young minds in their excursion throughout the week. McCleary has been in the Keys with Reef Relief for 11 years, his background being in water quality for almost 30 years. Coral camp was the first program he designed when he started. “It

started off as 40 kids and it has expanded,” he explains.

Four out of the five days are spent out on the water. Three of the four are out on a boat, exploring either spongebeds or our local reefs. If the campers are not out on the boat, they are snorkeling at the beach, enjoying a scavenger hunt at the Key West Aquarium, or hearing stories and learning new facts back at Reef Relief. Slogans like ‘protect the reefs’ are displayed through posters made throughout the week and quizzes are taken to test their knowledge on what they’ve learned with their time at camp.

Jack Salce, 11, is one of the many campers. “My favorite thing about camp is just that we get to explore and see the reef. It’s such a privilege and that other kids don’t get to have it. I feel that the reef here is a lot more healthy than the ones in other places. I recently went to Puerto Rico and the reef was really suffering from hurricane Maria. I just that I love to see the reef, it’s so cool and so amazing to see in front of your eyes,” he explains. He is just one out of the many campers that have been inspired to, “get out and do more things that teach us to save the environment more and how bad plastic is for the environment.”

One unique thing about Coral Camp is that it has many local high school students volunteering their time over the summer to help the camp. Baylie Brewer, an incoming sophomore, attended the camp when she was younger. When she became too old to participate, she was asked to stay and help out as a volunteer at the camp. “My favorite thing is that Reef RElief is always there to provide great and interesting information for tourists and the local community.”, she says.

“It’s almost like the middle school program we do now is an expansion of what coral camp is, more or less,” McCleary states when talking about how the program has become so much more. Along with the summer camp, Reef Relief reaches out to schools all over the county. Dora DiMaria, the education manager at Reef Relief, has reached out to over 7,000 students with information similar to what consists of Coral Camp. “You feel a bit more responsibility when you’re with kids because you really are the ones that can make or break or really affect their future.”, DiMaria states.

Sign ups for Coral Camp next year starting February 1st for spring break and April 1 for summer. These can be found at www.reefrelief.org along with updates on future events.

 

Captions:

Boat caption: Campers and interns pose with excitement while on one of their many boat excursions. Through this program, these young individuals were given the opportunity to explore Florida’s marine ecosystem.

 

Group photo caption: Campers and interns smile in front of the Reef Relief building in Key West. Here, they enjoy fun activities like fish dissections and stories told by director, Mill McCleary.

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