In 2004, my wife had some kids in her school whose dad had been put in prison. She wanted me to take the oldest two deer hunting and the youngest one to some deal called Scooter’s Youth Hunting Camp. I begrudgingly agreed to do so.
Wow, what a camp. I loved it. Oh yeah, and the kid did too!
It was the coolest deal in the world. It’s held the first Saturday in May every year at the local gun range in Emmett, which is a small town at the base of the mountains. The camp is free for the kids thanks to local businesses and outdoor companies donating items. Their generosity is overwhelming. The kids are able to attend free. We feed them lunch and provide snacks and water throughout the day and give them prizes.
Volunteers handle the grunt work to make the camp flow smoothly. In a nutshell, here’s how it goes. We start off with registration. Actually the kids preregister so I guess it is more of a check-in. We had to go to an online registration a couple of years ago. Last year, the camp filled up with 250 kids in 1 1/2 minutes. Kids must be from 9 to 16 years old. Once check-in is completed, a local pastor says a prayer and then the Young Marines present the flag and we say the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America.
Kids are divided into six groups. Group one will start at the trap shooting station, while group two goes to the .22 range. Then it’s onto the bow and arrow range, black powder, knife sharpening/gun cleaning station, and lastly the survival station. In-between rotations, there’ll be seminars put on by Pro-staff guys. So all the kids hit their first station and when it is done we gather for a seminar. After the seminar, they rotate to their next station and repeat this process throughout the day.
The stations are possible because of donations. For instance, at the gun cleaning station the supplies are donated by Otis and Swab-its, the knife sharpening gear by Smith’s Consumer Products and so on. At noon, we break for lunch, which has been provided by local businesses and is cooked by volunteers.
There’s also a raffle table to help support the camp. Then at the end we have Scott’s favorite time — the kids drawing. Companies such as Knives of Alaska, Smith Products, Blue Lizard, Birchwood Casey, Otis and Swab-its donate items to the kids. Every kid gets a prize. Local businesses such as Cabela’s and Sportsman’s Warehouse also help support the camp. They are more than generous.
It is the coolest camp in the world. I wouldn’t miss it to save my life. Since that first camp, I’ve been a volunteer since then.
The reason that I’m writing this article is because I think it’d be cool to get one of these camps started in your area. Is it a lot of work? Yes. We start having planning meetings in January. But is it worth it? Heck yeah. Don’t panic and think that you have to start out on a huge scale and do a big production. Start out small and go from there.
It doesn’t have to be some big elaborate deal. We hold ours at a small gun range in the little old town of Emmett. If anyone wants to organize one, let me know and I’ll line you up with Scott. He’s a big gruff guy but has a soft spot in his heart for kids.
After seeing one big smile on a little kid, it will be worthwhile for you — much less when you see 250. And to top it off, a buddy from Costa Rica brought his daughter, who had never held a gun. Later at school, some kid was saying how hunters slaughtered all the animals. She stood up and said, “No they don’t! I learned at SYHC that hunters have placed on themselves strict seasons and due to hunters there are now more deer than there’s ever been in America.”
That’s pretty cool.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
