Since the year 2002, Camas Parks and Recreation members bring forward a fun festival near the end of spring directed towards local youth. Every year when June rolls around the corner, Crown park, a popular park in the town, fills up with hundreds of kids, and many fun little events. This festival takes place on the first Saturday of June as a Camas tradition. “When I was younger, I used to go to the Camtown festival every single year, and I would stay for hours to do every event there at least twice.” Explains freshman Brekelle Werlich.
The annual Camtown youth festival contains many events to participate in for children. Some of these events include a variety of games (interactive games, dunk tank, cake walk, etc); crafts, a petting zoo, flea markets, information tables, and competitions. “My favorite things to do at Camtown was going to the little flea markets to buy jewelry, and the bouncy
houses when I was in elementary school,” says Kadie Dean, a freshman at CHS.
The event draws around 2,500 people a year, being one of the biggest events held in Camas. And for all of the people that come to participate in the festival it is free admission. “I used to bring my little sister here. The best part is all the games are free.”
Camtown also allows teenagers and adults to volunteer, so while the children are participating in the different events, there is also volunteer work for the older ones. Long term and short term volunteers are both needed to make the festival successful. Camtown has about 120 volunteers each year to run the five hour event. For the volunteers, there is much work needed: some of the volunteer work includes setting up the event, tearing the event down when it is over, operating games, and much other work like helping the kids with fun crafts.
The festival is open to many volunteers, and it is easy to sign up. Here are a couple reasons to sign up to volunteer for Camtown: you will build community service hours which could be important in the future, as well as gain experience interacting with the public. Long term volunteers have a meeting about once a month; and even easier, short term volunteers meetup the day of the event at Crown Park. So instead of being bored at home, sign up to volunteer at the annual Camtown.
