August 11th, 2016 – SACtivities

Queridos Madres y Padres,

Let me start with a hearty Kadima and many thanks to the overwhelming amount of sponsorships and donations over the past 2 days. We are humbled and truly appreciate the support that comes from our SAC family during this time each year. It is not too late to sponsor an event or activity. You can do so by visiting our website and donating directly through Paypal.

On to other business: Many of you who have been following us on Facebook this week already know that the campers are participating in Color War (Color war! Color war!), and if you got a chance to read last night’s blog post you already have the inside scoop on how your campers spent their first day on team blue or team green!

Let me explain why color war is SO great at camp. Starting with the most obvious, camp ruach, or spirit. During color war every kid is involved and excited, cheering for their team, and cheering for each other, creating an overwhelmingly positive energy throughout the camp. Color war also brings out the strengths of individual campers and groups of campers. The teams are judged on a camp song, a Sephardic song, a banner, a team mascot, and a d’var torah, allowing kids with all different interests to participate in color war in a way that piques their interest and keeps them involved. The kids are encouraged to bring their talents to help their teams win. Color war also emphasizes achdut, or unity, where campers of all ages and backgrounds work towards a unified goal — the pride of winning color war. In the end, we like to look at the bigger picture. Color war teaches the campers the importance of hard work paying off, good sportsmanship, positivity, and ruach!

Following shachrit (morning prayers) this morning, both teams participated in sportsmanship breakfast, where cheering for the opposite team was encouraged, and helping one another was rewarded with team points. From there, the teams split up for team meetings, where they began to plan their team song, paint a banner, write a d’var torah, and create a team mascot. Before lunch both teams were summoned to the waterfront where the boys competed in water sports, the girls in field sports, then vice versa.

The kids enjoyed a lunch of pasta, salad, and carrot sticks, where the color war challenge was to stay silent throughout lunchtime. If you’ve seen any of our facebook videos, you would know that this was a VERY DIFFICULT challenge for our campers. They were then given the option to participate in all camp soccer, or all camp basketball.

This afternoon they’ll continue the competition with an apache race, freeze-dance dinner, and a presentation of their camp songs, banner, d’var torah, and mascot. The winner will be announced this evening after arvit! Tune in around 8:15pm on Facebook, where we hope to livestream the presentations (assuming the wifi cooperates). Otherwise, we’ll announce the winner on Facebook afterwards!

Adventure On,

Chana Shefa