SME Share Camp: Daycare For Teacher’s Children

The SHARE program hosted the first ever SME camp, a daycare service for teachers’ kids during parent-teacher conferences, on Oct. 17.  Sophomores Kelly Murphy and Annakate Dilks organized volunteers to take care of the eight kids kids who participated in the camp.

At the camp, they worked on Halloween crafts like a-tip skeletons and popsicle stick spiders, and watched Dreamworks Spooky Stories, followed by a pizza dinner. The goal of the camp was to give teachers an easy solution to getting care for their children when they had to work the extra hours after school according to SHARE director Krissie Wiggins.

“It was for the teachers’ kids as a service to them because they are at school all day and then they have to be back at 4:30 and don’t get to see their kids,” Wiggins said. “At least that way they get to go home and get their kids and the kids get to be at school where they are too.”

For teachers like Jennifer Hair, the camp was very helpful for her family because both her and her husband work at East. While her daughter participated in the camp, she was able to complete her conferences without having to worry about where her kids were or who was taking care of them.

“It was such a huge service because normally we would have to get and coordinate a sitter and pay anywhere from $50 to $60 while both of us are here,” Hair said. “And I always say if I can combine my kids and my work everything is perfect, because those are my two favorite things.”

In years past, the program idea was always up in the air. It was originally presented four years ago to SHARE by Assistant Principal Jeffrey Storey to provide help to the teachers, but was never followed through until this year when Murphy and Dilks decided to lead the project, which resulted in success according to Wiggins.

“Hopefully it will grow and more teachers will take advantage of it once the word gets out,” Wiggins said.