Galloway Campers Spend Summer Having Fun - with a Purpose!

By Head of Community Engagement Gordon Mathis

This summer, a record number of students - 1,156 to be exact - participated in eight weeks of summer camps at Galloway, managed by Katrine Trantham, finishing her second year at The Galloway School. Seventy percent of these students were Galloway students with the remaining 30% joining from across metro Atlanta. It was a welcome change from last year’s pandemic-inspired Camp in a Box. 

Throughout the summer, health and safety protocols remained paramount. All participants wore masks inside and color-coded lanyards for easy cohort identification. Students brought lunch from home and ate outside. Staggered carpools allowed counselors to dismiss students in small groups.

The flagship Camp Galloway served children from PreK through 2nd grade. A series of STEAM-cation offerings met the needs of students in 3rd through 7th grades. There was a Middle Learning Summer Institute for older students as a refresher and a jump-start on fall academics; a handful of pre-9th grade classes were also available.

The majority of the STEAM-cation programs were taught by Galloway staff and faculty. Some of the offerings included Cardboard Engineering, Ladies in Lab Coats, DuctTape Survival, Slime-ology, Minecraft, and STEAMtank Entrepreneur. The theme of STEAM-cation was “fun with a purpose.” 

Rising 11th and 12th graders were counselors - aka assistant fun officers - and received experience to prepare them to work with the after-school Encore program during the school year. Rising 8th and 9th graders served as student fun officers, preparing them for roles as future counselors. 

In addition to Galloway’s offerings, the Alliance Theater offered five weeks of programs using the facilities in the Chaddick Center for the Arts, the Main Stage, the Black Box, and the newly installed dance studio in the McKerrow Conference Room. 

After a year “off” due to the pandemic, this year’s Summer at Galloway proved to be a true return to “fun for a purpose” for campers and counselors alike!