A Trip To REECA Heritage Camp

July 24-27 I have visited REECA (Russian,Eastern European, Central Asian) Heritage Camp. It was a very interesting experience that has touched me personally on various levels. Colorado Heritage Camps (REECA is just one of them) are organized for the families who adopted children from various countries of Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. My job in the camp was to tell both kids and their parents about the Russian collection at ALD, issue library cards and instruct the out-of-state campers on how to use ILL to borrow Russian language materials from our library as well as from other American libraries which have Russian language materials. I have also provided workshops on popular Russian children's games and most popular Russian kids' authors and books to the parents and volunteers of the Camp. And, of course, I told Russian stories to the kids! 12 hours of stories (6 hours per day!) to 140 kids. It was quite challenging (I even lost my voice by Sunday), but extremely rewarding, because those kids were REALLY excited about this service! I am really looking forward to go to the REECA Camp again next year and I think that Heritage Camps in general is a very good opportunity to outreach to diverse populations.