Author: Anna Wright

Categories
Stories In Focus

Royal Family Kids Camp

3.6 million American children are reported as abused, neglected or abandoned, according to the Royal Family KIDS website. One of these victims dies every six hours due to that abuse. Royal Family Kids Camp (or Royal Family Kids) was started in 1985 in an effort to make a difference in the lives of neglected and abused children. Today, RFK has grown to 160 camps in 35 states and 11 international countries.

One of those camps is located right here in Houghton, NY, at Camp Asbury. Now in its 22nd year, the camp hosts 52 children from Allegany county, mostly foster kids, for one week every summer. Nancy Murphy, current co-director of the camp with Zach Rhone, noted that “foster kids don’t get to go to summer camp – they move around a lot and they usually don’t have a lot of money. This is a chance for them to have a really special experience, and a chance for the counselors to have a huge impact on their lives.”

The camp here in Houghton is Camp #22 of the 160 camps currently running. It was started in 1994 when John Van Wicklin, professor of psychology,  asked Houghton Wesleyan Church to consider helping start up a Royal Family Kids camp in Allegany County. The church was eager to help and many church members are still involved with the camp today, such as Mike and Cindy Lastoria and Doug and Phyllis Gaerte.

Camp #22 functions with the help of over 60 volunteers each summer. 26 of those are volunteer counselors for the 52 campers.  RFK requires one counselor for every two campers to ensure that the campers get full attention for the week they are at camp. Along with counselors, there is a dean of men and dean of women, a curriculum team to plan events, as well as others who volunteer to help ensure the kids have a wonderful week.

“More than half of the campers live with single grandparents, who are often not fully capable of taking care of the child,” said Murphy, former counselor, Dean of Women, and now co-Director. “Siblings are sometimes put into different foster care homes, and sometimes the only time they get to see each other is the one week of camp. We try to make it a really special time for them. During the early years of the camp, one little boy mentioned that he’d never had a birthday party. So now we celebrate every camper’s birthday during the week of camp.”

“The whole goal of the camp is to love these children as Jesus loves us,” said Emma Webb ’16. Emma volunteered several summers ago and said that it was one of the best summers of her life. “One of my teachers in high school in charge of the curriculum team asked students if they would consider applying. I did, and we had the best job! Being on the curriculum team meant we planned all the fun events – the skits, game nights, and camp wide events. It also meant that I got to interact with all of the campers, rather than being a counselor to just two.”

In her twenty-two years working with the camp, first as a counselor, then as Dean of Women, and now as co-Director, Murphy has been able to see the impact on the children’s lives. “These are children whose lives are chaos. In the twenty-two years the camp has been running, we have only ever had one child go home for homesickness. That says something about the campers. I could call a mom and ten minutes later her seven-year-old is climbing in my van to go to camps. These are kids who have been shuffled around, abused and neglected, removed from their families. It sounds cliché, but they really do respond to love like a flower responds to the sun.”

Categories
News Stories In Focus

Zumba: Fitness Made Fun

Though it’s technically the room meant for rock-climbers, the auxiliary gym in Nielsen is filled with dancers twice a week. The first image that pops into mind might be ballet, but no, these are Zumba dancers that shimmy, sway, and sweat it out twice a week under the instruction of sophomore Kingsley Kolek.

Zumba RGBKolek, who has been doing Zumba for seven years, started classes at Houghton last spring. “When I took my tour as an incoming student, someone had said that a senior did it, and obviously, they were graduating. I had already applied to get my certification, and thought that would be a great opportunity for me to step in.” She now leads classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights, each an hour and a half long.

Zumba  is a dance workout phenomenon which started in the mid-90s by dance instructor and choreographer Alberto Perez. Perez forgot his dance music one day, and instead had to use whatever was playing on the radio – salsa and reggae music. With this non-traditional exercise music, he improvised an aerobics class combined with dance, and Zumba was born. Since 2001, when Zumba  was first registered as a trademark under Zumba Fitness, more than 10 million workout DVDs have been sold. It is enjoyed in 180 countries around the world, with over 15 million people reaping the benefits of the workout, according to their website. Zumba also founded the Zumba Dance Academy in 2005, which licenses instructors to teach classes.

Kolek is one of those certified instructors. “I went to an eight hour class, and learned all the different ways of teaching Zumba. It sounds like I just went to an eight hour Zumba class, but you actually have a classroom setting and learn all the psychological benefits of it, too.”

Zumba  is one of the most effective workouts there is, psychologically as well as physically, because “people view it as going to dance rather than going to work out,” said Kolek.

Houghton students seem to enjoy it, too. “The first class, I actually thought to myself – if I had about 5 more people come, we would have had to take the class to a different room,” Kolek recounts. “It’s been a little low recently, because it’s getting to the end of the semester and people have exams, but I had about 20 – 25 people consistently.”

The only problem the Zumba classes seem to face is the ever-present “Houghton ratio”. So far, the classes here at Houghton have been made up primarily of women.

“That’s the one thing about Zumba,” Kolek explains. “Guys hear ‘dance’, and they automatically think that they’re not going to get anything out of it. But actually in the Zumba company, there are many male instructors. It’s definitely a workout for both genders.”

Categories
Campus News

Solution Proposed for Forest Concerns

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” This verse from Psalm 1 is what opened the report on Forestry Management. This quote encapsulates what the committee is trying to do in regards to maintaining Christian stewardship of the land surrounding Houghton under their responsibility. The committee, an ad-hoc group made up of sustainability coordinator, Brian Webb; professor of biology, James Wolfe; director of technology services, Don Haingray; and vice president for finance and planning, David Smith, who have put their expertise together in order to protect the environment surrounding the college. The forest is well-used by students and faculty for bonfires, nature walks, and exercise on the many trails. From an outside perspective, one might never know there were any problems with the way the forest is growing.

Screen Shot 2015-10-01 at 8.09.12 PMEssentially, the forest has become overcrowded. The trees are now so tightly packed not enough sunlight is reaching the forest floor, meaning there is very little undergrowth or new trees growing. This is unhealthy for the forest because in ten or twenty years when the older trees die, there will be no young trees growing to take their place.

According to Webb, it has not always been this way. “If you look at pictures of Houghton’s early history you see blank, empty land,” he said. “Because all the trees were cut, and when a forest is that extensively cut, the way things regrow tends to be very artificial. We have an even age forest because they were all planted at the same time. It’s a product of the way humans cut the Houghton forest 100, 150 years ago.” The natural ecology of the forest has been disrupted, and the Forestry Committee is attempting taking the steps to help reduce the damage.

The committee’s focus is primarily on the overall health of the forest. Many of these necessary improvements can be made through a sustainable harvest plan. They developed a plan to thin out some of the trees in order to provide room for new trees to grow, in addition to providing the already existing trees with more space to grow healthily. Selective cutting, when done properly, will benefit the forest significantly, it will allow more light to reach the forest floor and help the smaller, younger trees to be healthy. The college will also benefit by selling the timber they cut down, with the revenue they receive going back into improving the forest environment.

In order to carry out this plan of safe timber removal, the committee has hired a New York State Forester. Already, he has done a detailed assessment of the forest, creating a specific breakdown of the different types of trees growing, which ones are growing well, and which are not, as well as gathering information on invasive species. The forester will mark the trees to be harvested, manage the timber company throughout the process, and ensure the entire logging process creates as minimal a disruption to the environment as possible.

The forester also identified ways to minimize the negative effects of tree removal, including minimizing the erosion caused by loggers, improving wildlife habitats, and dealing with invasive species. They will also avoid disturbing the everyday use of Houghton College property.

Though no date has yet been set for the timber removal to begin, it will take place either in winter or in summer. During winter, the ground will be frozen hard, which minimizes the damage vehicles can do to the forest floor. During summer, however, there will be few students still on campus, and will minimize the disturbance the logging process will make.

“This is a long term plan to care for this part of God’s creation. There is no ‘quick fix’,” said Smith.

Smith also said once the suitable harvest plan is set in motion, it will still take many years for the forest to return to its original healthy ecology. It won’t happen all at once. The plan recommended by the forester will take place over the next fifteen years, the first five years spent as they mark, harvest, and observe the changes to various parts of the forest. They will then spend ten years letting nature take its natural course and carefully observing what further changes may need to be made. It will likely take many generations of careful forest management before the forest is able to “take over on its own, and produce as it should,” as Brian Webb noted.

Categories
Stories In Focus

FAC Advocates For Health and Nutrition

Sodexo works hard to provide food that the students will enjoy and also will be able to work for students of all different backgrounds and lifestyles. Students need food that will give us the nourishment we need for stressful weeks, all-nighters, and the generally busy life of a typical Houghton student.

Growing up, a lot of kids are told to eat what is in front of them, and not complain, we’re not always allowed the luxury of being a picky eater. Here at Houghton, however, Sodexo cares about what we think of the food and what we want to eat, and they are willing to listen.

Sodexo-logo-vectorHoughton is fortunate to have a Food Advisory Committee (FAC). This committee is still relatively new. The FAC only started last year, but have already been able to make an impact and implement nutritious changes to the diet provided by Sodexo.

Essentially, the FAC works as a liaison between the student body and the Sodexo workers. They raise questions such as, is the food good, are the students enjoying it, is there one dish students like more than another, etc. These are all questions Sodexo needs feedback on, and the committee lets students voices be heard.

The FAC is made up primarily of students, but is headed by a Sodexo employee. Last year it was headed by general manager Tina Powers, who worked hard to meet the students’ needs. It was her idea to put up the opinions board where students could write suggestions or complaints in order to be heard. Powers  would read and respond to every single one, no matter how inane the suggestion or complaint might be.

This year, though the leadership of the committee has changed, but its attitudes of service to the students has not. The committee is now is headed by new general manager Kathie Guyler. The board gathers once a month to discuss the issues going on in the dining hall, such as foods students really like, foods students disliked, the rearranging of some food stations, and various other topics. One of the issues faced last year was the removal of napkin holders on tables, which surprisingly created far more discontent than they thought it would. These are all decisions the committee deliberates and decides on in the hopes of making a better situation for all.

Junior Melissa Maclean has been a member of the committee since it began. She said she joined due to her interest in nutrition, and loves being a part of it because it means she “has a say and can advocate for health on campus.”

The committee has only met once so far this semester, but there is room in the committee for more people to join this year. If you are interested in nutrition, in advocating for health, and for making an impact, then the FAC is a great place to start.