The Gandee Family

As I mentioned, all of the teams this year are called families, as we are named after popular names out of the phone book.
My group is called the Gandee family - led by me and Windall. It includes Emily Diamond, Jessie Muir, Taylor Janota, Amanda Webb, Riley Knight, Cody Likens, Caleb Likens and Riley Duncan.

Our family group is spending the entire week at the Charleston Boys and Girls Club. The CBGC is run by the Salvation Army and works with underprivileged youth and children in the area. In the summer time, they offer a day camp, which is what we are helping with.

We were divided to working with different age groups and will stay with our assigned groups the whole week. These kids need consistency, something many of them are lacking in the rest of their life. Our being with them for the entire week allows us to form closer and stronger bonds.

The age groups are 6-7 year olds (Cody Likens and Riley Knight), 8-9 year olds (Caleb Likens and Taylor Janota/Amanda Webb), 10-11 year olds (Emily Diamond and Jessie Muir), and 12-14 year olds (Riley Duncan and Taylor Janota/Amanda Webb). Windall is primarily with the 10-11 year olds, I am primarily with the 6-7 year olds - but we are trying to help out wherever we are needed most.

There is a crazy amount of kids shoved into this facility and they are extremely understaffed. Yesterday, my 6-7 year old group had 43 students with only 1 paid adult staff member! Without us...I think they may have not had a staff member at all by today:-)

That's pretty much the scoop for the Gandee family. I'm going to try to get all of the families listed tonight...so keep checking in...