Students get a memorable anti-smoking lesson at Albany summer camp

ALBANY — It was a typical day at summer camp for kids at the city of Albany’s Lockett Station Road campsite on Wednesday — a little football, drawing a self-portrait in the art room and donning gloves to knead a human lung with their fingers.

Wait, what?

That’s right. As part of a health presentation on the dangers of smoking and vaping, participants had the opportunity to look at, and touch, both a healthy lung and a lung blackened by years of smoking.

“It was very cool,” Montavious Jackson, one of the few in his group to take up the offer to get up close and personal with the preserved tissue, said. “It felt very weird. It felt … solid.”

The 12-year-old from Florida, who was attending the Albany Recreation and Parks Department’s summer camp while spending time in Albany with relatives, said he saw the opportunity as perhaps an introduction to a future career.

“I want to be a doctor one day like my mom,” who is a nurse and pursuing a medical degree, he said.

The lung on the right in the display was not only stained by smoke but also diseased with cancer, which Joshua Briley, also 12, was able to detect with his fingers.

“It felt like it was really hard,” he said. “The healthy one was softer.”

The day campers get a health lesson each week of the camp, although likely not as memorable as that presented on Wednesday. Last week the students got a lesson on oral hygiene.

This week’s presentation was meant to be a stark warning about the potential risks of smoking and was presented by the Phoebe Putney Health System Network of Trust and the Dougherty County Health Department.

“They’re talking about vaping and the damage it does to the lungs, and tobacco,” Cassandra Arrington, athletics supervisor at the Lockett Station site, located at the Robert A. Cross Middle Magnet School campus, said. “It (vape use) is starting to pick up in the city as a whole. It’s really great that Phoebe and the health department were able to come in and talk to them before the next school year so maybe they won’t smoke or vape.”

During the oral hygiene instruction last week, the students received toothbrushes to take home.

The site can handle up to 100 7- to 13-year-olds, and some days attendance has included as many as 98, Arrington said. ARP conducts summer camps at two additional sites, with one accepting participants up to age 17.

Due to the dreary weather on Wednesday, groups of boys were catching footballs thrown by counselors in the gym.

Other activities include basketball, dodgeball and art. This year a big focus is on learning to prevent the “brain drain” that can occur over breaks when students are not in school. Teachers from the Dougherty County School System and college students home for the summer were enlisted to help teach.

“It’s great, going great,” Arrington said of the 2023 camp season that started on May 30 and winds up on July 21.”They love it.”

The experience offers lots of activities to keep the children focused on the fun and not staring at cellphone screens, she said.

“For the campers, we keep them busy,” Arrington said. “They’re rotated every hour to another activity.

“I think the best thing about this camp is that it is affordable. We had funds and different people supported (participants). I would say that was the most impressive thing.”

This year ARP received a $195,000 grant that allowed officials to lower the price of the camp from $150 to $50.

Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f714026fc83d6150ab9a4350b4169940?s=100&d=mm&r=gStaff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]
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