July 1, 2004

Volunteer of the Week: Julia Adams

By Miranda Schultz
Staff Writer

In her capacity as the coordinator of the Almaden Lake Cub Scout Day Camp, Julia Adams recently spent the past six months finding activities that would occupy over 80 Cub Scout-age boys for five days—not an easy task.

The camp went off without a hitch the week of June 21.

“She ran the whole thing,” says Sharon Potter, who volunteered at the camp and had a son attend. “She is there every day and spends months planning this. She’s so patient with the kids, it’s amazing,” she says.

The day camp is for cub scouts, and happens every year. Adams has spearheaded the event for the last two years. She has two sons in Boy Scouts.

“I have really good memories of going to camp as a kid, so I have a lot of fun trying to make it that way for these boys,” says Adams.

This year’s theme for the camp was “The 100 Years of Flight.” Adams spent countless hours brainstorming activities, and also testing their credibility with her program director, Mitzi Fishman and four mothers on the planning committee: Michelle Holtz, Cindy Roberts, Catherine Shearley, and Debbie Gary.

“We have to test out each of our ideas before we just plan to have them work on little boys,” says Adams.

They have five stations each day and the boys do different activities at each station. The archery station is a favorite. They can earn their Archery belt loop during that time, and summer camp is the only place to receive the Archery belt loop.

They also organize field sports to “run off some excess energy,” says Adams. Arts and craft and nature stations are also among the activities. The boys were able to dissect owl pellets this year, after being sanitized, of course.

“I can’t believe how organized she was,” says Potter. She was really caring about the children’s safety. All of the kids just loved it and were totally fascinated. I was so impressed with this camp,” she says.

With over 80 young boys, one would think a person would be raving mad by the end of the day. But Adams says, “it runs smoothly because of the great parent help I have. All of the parents that helped out really made it a wonderful experience. My greatest pleasure in doing this is to see all of these boys having a great time at summer camp.”

To participate in the camp, parents had to volunteer one day per child enrolled in the camp, which has no paid staff.

Adams also volunteers as a Cub Scout den leader, and is on the board of the Home and School Club at Guadalupe Elementary School. She participates in many events with the scouts. She has a 9-year-old son and twin 7-year-olds.

The Cub Scouts are for boys ages 7-10 and there were 898,361 in the U.S. as of December 2003. The 10 purposes of Cub Scouting are character development, spiritual growth, good citizenship, sportsmanship and fitness, family understanding, respectful relationships, personal achievement, friendly service, fun and adventure, and preparation for Boy Scouts.

All of which were in abundance at the camp.