CAMP IROQUOIS - A PLACE FOR A KID TO BE A KID

Each year over the course of two week periods of the summer, 20 children from ages 9 through 12 from Jefferson County have the opportunity to attend the New York State Sheriffs’ Association Summer Camp(Camp Iroquois). Each child is assigned to a cabin with eight to 10 other boys or girls. Each cabin has a minimum of one senior and one junior counselor.

Each day starts out with a quick dip in the lake for all and is followed by cabin clean- up, breakfast and morning classes: canoeing, kayaking, sailing, hiking, swimming, football, basketball, cheerleading and many more activities. Each child will be asked to select two classes that they would like to attend. The classes they select will be the classes they attend each morning, usually one land class and one water class.

Each day a demonstration is put on from different Sheriff’s Offices from around the State, each demonstration lasts about one hour. Demonstration examples are drug/bomb dogs, SERT Teams, Sheriff dive teams, bicycle safety, and DARE.

After lunch, there is about an hour of quiet time to watch a movie, play board games and relax before a very active afternoon. There are no classes in the afternoon. Each child spends an hour doing land activities followed by an hour of water recreation.

After dinner, the evenings are taken up with games that task each individual child. The children also work in teams to accomplish a common goal. During the week each child takes up the challenge of the six mile walk to see a historic church that was built at the turn of the 19th century on a hill that oversees Keuka lake. Another activity includes skits, which usually bring lots of laughs and plenty of water.

Other activities during the week include several campfires, dance, water carnival, slip and slide, and a water regatta.

Sheriff’s camp is a camp for all kids and is not a "tough love" camp for children in need of authoritative structure. This is a place like no other on earth where kids from all walks of life can come and just be kids. Each week Sheriff’s Deputies and Corrections Officers assist camp personnel as additional counselors and help wherever they're needed. These officers wear no uniforms and many act just like the kids themselves and are just having a great time. On Saturday morning when awards are handed out to the campers, it is the first time that the campers see these deputies for who they really are, just regular people that have chosen law enforcement as a career.