camp registration 2020!
I had to put this RIGHT AT THE TOP.
CAMP ENROLLMENT is SO much BIGGER and SO much EARLIER than ever before. We have CLEARED 100 camp registrations already! Last year we didn’t have 100 campers until Mid MARCH. I don’t really know why this is happening, but I want you to be aware of it because last year 90+ people registered for camp in MAY. . . and I predict this year NONE of our camps will have space by then. I’m told this is a “good problem to have” but honestly I HATE turning kids away from camp. Especially kids I know and love. So, please please consult your calendars and register for camp! .2020 CAMP REGISTRATION
spring break camp EARLY BIRD discounts until 2/15!
I also wanted you to know that we have a Spring Break Camp April 6-10 and are running and Early Bird discount until February 15!
If you live OUTSIDE Chatham County and are a NEW camper you can take $50 off the Full Week registration or $10 off day by day.
If you live OUTSIDE Chatham County and are a RETURNING camper you can take $25 off the Full Week registration and $5 off day by day.
If you live IN CHATHAM COUNTY and are a NEW camper you can take $100 off the Full Week registration or $20 off day by day.
If you live IN CHATHAM COUNTY and are a RETURNING camper you can take $50 off the Full Week registration or $10 off day by day.
And of course our scholarship program is STILL there if you need it!
a second email for Clapping Hands Farm
You might be seeing emails from clappinghands2@gmail..com that is the email we’ve set up for our SUPER HERO volunteers Kate and Holli to use! It’s legit!
message from louise (founder and director)
Dear Clapping Hands Farm Camp Community!!
Our Tuesday Art Camp for Homeschoolers keeps camp magic going all year. I’m having a great time leading a FELTING workshop on Tuesdays right now and Sarah Perry and her campers have been INVENTING GAMES—- the game they invented on the first day has been requested at Anything Goes every week since. It’s a keeper, a real game, if you come to camp this summer we’ll play Guacamole! In March, we change up our themes and Teli Shabu will be leading an instrument making workshop; Sarah Perry and Edith McCaskill will be leading a Music Jam/Song Writing focus group, and I’ll be leading a Spring Fever compatible Outdoor Art Adventures group that will include hiking, excursions, canoeing and making art outside along the way! I really love all the COOL STUFF we get to do at camp!
Behind the scenes it is the “busy season” at Clapping Hands Farm. We are responding to registrations, hiring staff, and getting the final focus groups and lead teachers confirmed. I get pretty excited thinking about the fun things we will do! And all the wonderful people—- staff and campers alike that will be together at camp!
In my last message, VOLUNTEERS were on my mind and I’m really pleased to say that if 2020 is the “year of the volunteer” at Clapping Hands Farm we are off to a great start! TWO very capable adults, have stepped up to do a few hours a WEEK on a specific administrative task. Kate Hibbard will be helping with Camp Registrations, and Holli Kearns will be helping send out employee Contracts. This is EXACTLY the kind of sustaining real help that I was hoping for!
I also realized that I have complained for all these years that once camp is HAPPENING there is all this vibrant help and community—- but GETTING READY for camp is SO beastly hard and lonely! So, this year, I am asking ALL of our counselors to make some training and workday commitments in these months leading up to camp. . . and I’m already feeling relief in the help that has shown up so far. It’s wonderful. Thank you!
So, once again—-if you are passionate about a project, specific camp, or event OR you just know you are willing and want to be part of the action– contact Louise directly at 919-542-5599, email clappinghandsfarm@gmail.com or fill out this handy VOLUNTEER FORM. There is also a place to indicate how you’d like to help on the camp registration form.
Along with building our volunteer program, the other thing that seems vital to our Sustainability Mission is to have some additional Matching Donors. In order to keep camp running, we do a lot of fundraising to support our “no one turned away” scholarship program. Between 1/2 and 1/3 of our campers come on scholarship every week of camp. We have THREE big fundraising projects every year— a Fundraising Letter that volunteers send out in the Fall; a Crowdfunding Campaign over the summer; and (our favorite) Fundraising Parties that big-hearted members of our community host. Our Matching Donors boost ALL our fundraising projects by giving them ADDED POWER. During our letter writing campaign they match donations of $250 or more and reward our volunteers by donating $10 for every letter they write. During our Crowdfunding campaign they provide incentives like throwing in an extra $1,000 if we get to our goal by a deadline. They match dollar for dollar the money raised at some of our fundraising parties. Our camp program has grown SIGNIFICANTLY over the past three years; we are now serving more children and so we have more scholarships than ever before. Right now we have FOUR Matching Donors. We need more in order to sustain our fundraising at this new level. A MATCHING DONOR can be anyone who can pledge $1000 to our scholarship program this year; and some go an extra mile towards sustainability by pledging for multiple years ($1000 each year for the next three years, for example.) If you would like to know more about being a Matching Donor, or think you might know someone who could be asked to be a Matching Donor, please contact Louise directly at 919-542-5599, email clappinghandsfarm@gmail.com.
round up at chatham marketplace!
Clapping Hands Farm was the recipient for the Chatham Marketplace ROUND UP program in JANUARY!!!! We will be receiving a check this month, and the manager has told us it’s one of the bigger ones they’ve given lately! Thank you for ROUNDING UP when you shopped there! And thank you to Chatham Marketplace for thinking up ways to support organizations in our community
summer camp schedule 2020!!! WITH FOCUS GROUP and LEAD TEACHER UPDATES!!!!!
IMPORTANT NOTE: These dates were SIGNIFICANTLY REWORKED on 12/30/2019. If you looked at them or made any plans related to them BEFORE this date, please LOOK AGAIN.
2020 Camp Schedule!
ANYTHING GOES SPRING BREAK CAMP
April 6-10, 2020. 9 am to 5 p.m. Ages 7-13. $250/week; $60/day.
MAY ART PARTY CAMP
May 25-29, 2020. 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Ages 2-8.
Family Campers coming with a parent by the WEEK: $225 first child; $200 second child; $50 babies ages 0-2.
Family Campers coming with a parent by the DAY: $45 first child; $40 second child; $10 babies ages 0-2
Bridge Campers ages 5 and older coming without a parent: $250/week.
JUNE ART PARTY CAMP
June 15-19, 2020. 9 am to 2 pm. Ages 2-8
Family Campers coming with a parent by the WEEK: $225 first child; $200 second child; $50 babies ages 0-2.
Bridge Campers ages 5 and older coming without a parent: $250/week.
TOYS & GAMES CAMP
June 29- July 3, 9 am to 5 pm. Ages 7-13. $250
MUSIC & DANCE CAMP
July 13-17, 9 am to 5 pm. Ages 9-16. $300
FOCUS GROUP UPDATES:
Latin Dance with Andrea Lara is CONFIRMED
Hip Hop is happening and I am SO close to being able to announce the teacher, keep checking the website!
Jazz Band is actually EXPANDING to include Jazz AND other musical possibilities. Sarah Perry and Teli Shabu will lead this group along with some talented Guest Artists.
ARTS FOCUS CAMP
July 27-31, 2020. 9 am to 5 pm. Ages 13-18. $300
FOCUS GROUP UPDATES:
BEAT BOXER Chris Celiz is coming to camp! Check him out!
Sarah Perry will be leading an INVENTING GAMES focus group!
FIBER ARTS will be offering FELTING with Louise, QUILTING with lots of exciting NEW projects and WEAVING with a lot of exciting NEW projects!
UKULELE CAMP
August 10-14, 2020. 9 am to 3 pm. Ages 10 to adult. $300 with a Ukulele; $250 if you bring $250 if you bring your own Ukulele.
TEACHER UPDATES:
Sarah Perry will lead our Brand New Beginners
Jimmy Magoo will lead our Advanced Beginnners
Vessna Schref will lead a Song Writing and Performance group for Intermediate and Advanced players
and I am still confirming a teacher for Intermediate and Advanced players who want to focus on building skills and technique.
REGISTER FOR CAMP! and SPREAD THE WORD!!
call for counselors!
With a new summer camp season comes a need for MANY MANY wonderful camp counselors! We can use people as young as 10 as Junior Counselors at Art Party Camp! And we need people 19 and up to work as counselors at Arts Focus Camp. RETURNING COUNSELORS and NEW COUNSELORS all need to fill out our counselor application form to begin the process of being considered for counselor positions.
2023 COUNSELOR & ADULT VOLUNTEER APPLICATIONart party counselors! sign up for training days and work days!
ALL Art Party Counselors, Volunteers, and Junior Counselors are expected to attend at least on Project Training Workshop and give 2-4 volunteer hours on a “beauty and order” workday. Here is a link to the sign up for all of that: ART PARTY COUNSELORS TRAINING and WORK DAYS
volunteer!
We need:
- Adult Volunteers AT CAMP (this is the FUN PART y’all!)
- People who love to clean and organize stuff for our “Beauty and Order” workdays
- People to show up at EVENTS in the community to run activities for children and tell people about Camp!
- Workday volunteers for outdoor labor at the farm
- Someone who would be the POINT PERSON for workday coordinating contacting other volunteers to get a turn out for each workday and event.
- Fundraising party hosts! It would be good to schedule 2 or 3 of them this Spring. Maybe even 4.
- People to RUN the crowdfunding campaign over the summer. We have a formula for doing this, but the hands on part would be best done by a volunteer since camp is running while this campaign is going and it’s hard for staff to tend to this
- People to provide staff dinners for the Sunday Staff Meeting before each session of Tuesday Art Camp and before each camp.
- People to help with admin stuff. In particular people to LEARN some of the tasks ANNA does so we can take over her tasks for a MONTH or TWO this May and June while she is out on Maternity leave!
- and MORE! Most helpful thing for us is if you are interested in volunteering, please FILL OUT THIS FORM:
ukulele program
If you play the ukulele you can join our ukulele band! Band Practice is most Sundays 2-4 meeting locations alternating between Clapping Hands Farm and a home on the border of Chapel Hill and Durham. For full schedule and details see our UKULELE PROGRAM PAGE.
Sarah is teaching in the community this winter. She plans to teach at Clapping Hands Farm again once the weather is warmer. Check back to the UKULELE PROGRAM PAGE or contact Sarah to be put on a contact list for updates! sarah.chfarm@gmail.com
community news!
- BABIES are coming! Emily Henley is expecting her second baby, Jennifer DeWolf is expecting in MAY and so is our staffer Anna Wright the “Detail Wizard of Clapping Hands Farm” who works year round to keep everything behind the scenes sane and organized. In order to keep Louise sane and organized during Anna’s maternity leave—– extra help will be needed around here.
- Jabu Graybeal will be performing at DPAC in Durham NC on March 4th with a band called Post Modern Jukebox.
- Aya Shabu is performing in a play by Howard Craft called Orange Light, running through February 16 in Durham. Tickets Here.
- Send your NEWS for the next newsletter! Concerts, Events, awards, sickness, help needed, your personal business classifieds. . . . we’d like to support, celebrate and connect people here!
