This summer, we enrolled our daughter, Victoria, in the Just Us Girls daycamp at the UPEI Sports Centre. She has two older brothers and we felt that she would thrive in an all girls environment for a couple of weeks. Both my husband and I felt that the focus on fitness and self-esteem would be invaluable for our young daughter. It was a wonderful experience for her as she made lots of wonderful friends and blossomed focusing on “girl stuff”, as she says. Cheryl Wartman (Vicky’s mother)

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Hi, my name is Vicky. I was nine this summer when I went to Just Us Girls Camp, or as we all called it J.U.Gs, at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI). It was a really good experience—you have all sorts of different fun. All the girls in the camp got to plan the things to do over the two weeks.

We picked a Spa Day. Arriving in our PJs, we watched Snow White with a teddy bear, a blanket, and a pillow to relax. We ate candy and popcorn during the movie.  That day we also did each others nails, got foot massages, did face creams, make-up, and hair, but we washed the make-up off later before our parents picked us up.

On Crazy Hair Day we made our hair all weird and wacky. It was a competition. My Nanny and I did my hair before I went to camp. We put a stuffed rat in my hair and we wrapped some of my hair around it in an elastic to make it stay up. There was a sign on the rat’s ears that said “Rats Nest.” All you could see was the rat’s little nose, one of his eyes, and the ears popping out of what looked like a big knot. Everyone else had really good hair too. One girl had a pencil stuck in her hair that looked like a person. Another, had a big eraser in her hair. But my favorite was the girl who had a brush stuck in her hair like she was trying to brush her hair and it got stuck. The counselors voted and I won. I was really excited like I wanted to just faint. I was so happy that day that I didn’t even mind giving away my cookie to a friend when she asked.

One day, we spent all day in the UPEI gym playing sports such as basketball, dodge ball, and museum. You may not know it, but museum is a really fun game. Players must stand still when the person who is “it” looks at them, but when they turn their back to you, then you can move doing all sorts of things. I liked sticking my tongue out at people and making the cuckoo sign. When the person that is “it” looked back, you have to freeze like that no matter how long they looked at you. If you had your tongue out, then the teachers said that it was O.K. to move your mouth to put it back in, but not any other part of your body.

Everyday we went swimming. It was awesome. I love swimming! The pool complex has three pools in a big room. I went in the deep pool first, then I went in the baby pool because it is so warm. The waterslide was open so I went on it a few times. There was a Tarzan rope: I love to swing high across the water and jump off into the water. I tried to go off the huge diving board but it is really high. Once I did it, though: Yeah! It made me feel really cool and I was so awesome that day. One person gave me a cookie for jumping off the diving board.

The only thing I did not like about the camp was that they gave me tampons and talked about our period. It made me feel weird because I was nine and would have rather had that discussion with my parents.

The last day we got to write all these different compliments for people in the camp. One of the things I wrote was “You are one of the best friends I had at this camp. Thanks for being my BFF!.” We all got a pink T-shirt that said UPEI. Everyone signed their names on all the other shirts. I wear mine all the time because I remember all these things about camp. I would love for other girls to go and have the experience that I did.

JUST US GIRLS CAMP IS AWESOME!

Editor’s Note: The UPEI Just Us Girls Camp is described as: A unique two-week camp designed to meet the needs of today’s young females. This camp addresses such topics as nutrition, self-esteem, fitness, and self-defence, combined with creative opportunities such as Spa Days, Girl Power Sessions, and a career day.This girls-only camp is co-sponsored by the PEI Girls and Women in Sport (Just Us Girls Camp pamphlet).

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