Featured Sites |
PeacePartners, Inc. honors our valued partners by celebrating their passion for peace, their
creative ideas, and the wonderful implementation strategies they incorporate.
As we continue to support our partners, it is our privilege to showcase PeaceBuilders sites.
Don't just take our word for it. Read about some featured sites as they explored their problems,
developed their PeaceBuilders solution, and discovered positive outcomes! We invite you to sit
back and explore the fantastic PeaceBuilding events happening throughout the United States and
U.S. Territories. |
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| Salvation Army Kroc Center - San Diego, CA |
The Salvation Army Kroc Center is a PeaceBuilders Day Camp. All the staff is trained annually to be PeaceBuilders coaches for the children that visit their camp for week-long sessions during school breaks and during the summer.
The staff at the Kroc Center, led by Director Andrea Sanford, does a fabulous job of coaching children to be PeaceBuilders during their one-week visits. While many of the children return to the camp many weeks throughout the year, for some children one week of PeaceBuilders is all they get; and the staff at the Kroc Center make sure that one week has a very positive, peaceful impact.
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Campers are divided into groups according to the focus of their camp experience: some campers learn to cook, some ice skate, others are broken up by age level, but all the groups learn to be PeaceBuilders.
Each week at camp has a different theme. The theme for the week ending March 28th was Intergalactic Days.
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| Kroc Center's intergalactic PeaceBuilders have influenced space aliens to be PeaceBuilders too! |
Each day, camp counselors and children concentrate on one of the PeaceBuilders Principles. They begin on Monday with "What is Peace" by exploring what peace means to each of them and by creating a group vision of peace. Tuesday they focus on the Principle Give Up Put-Downs to make sure their camp experience is a positive one. Wednesday they learn the importance of Seeking Wise People. Thursday all the campers participate in activities focused on Noticing Hurts and Righting Wrongs. And the week ends, on Friday, by a day filled with praising people. Helping Others is something they do everyday.
At the PeaceBuilders closing ceremony during Intergalactic Days, each group created their own skit to demonstrate what PeaceBuilders means to them. The entire proceedings begin with a rally cry that all the groups sang together. Then each of the groups gave their own unique performance.
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| Group Ice Skate began their presentation by marching out to the Star Wars theme song. Their chant, "We Rock, We Rock, on Ice" was sung to the theme of Queen's "We Will Rock You." |
Top Chef Camp (the cooking campers) wrote new lyrics to the same tune and included a RAP written by one of the campers:
Chorus:
We will, we will PeaceBuild.
We will, we will PeaceBuild.
Walking down the hall, seeing their face
We give them a wave and ask "How was your day?"
Chorus
Give up put-downs, seek wise people,
Notice hurt feelings, and praising people
Chorus
Rap written by a camper:
We the PeaceBuilders
We throwing our hands up
Havin' so much fun
As big as a Mack truck
We the PeaceBuilders
We havin' so much fun
We get it done with no frown
You know how we roll
We the PeaceBuilders
We got so much soul
As big as the hugest bowl
You know how we roll
We the PeaceBuilders. |
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| A group of 8-9 year olds showcased the talent of some skilled breakdancers. |
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| This group of 10-13 year olds entertained the crowd with some spectacular lyrics and dance moves. |
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The 5-7 year old group sang a sweet song titled
"We are Mini Martians" to the tune of "I'm a Little Tea Pot."
We are mini Martians, helping friends
In outer space and here on land
When we notice hurts, we make amends
We are green friendly aliens! |
| After the performances, one of the groups was selected by camp counselors' vote as the best PeaceBuilders group of the week. They were honored for working together, for getting along, for being responsible and respectful-in short, for being PeaceBuilders. |
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| The winning team for Intergalactic Days was Team Ice Skate. |
| As their prize, the team won a lot of praise from staff and peer groups and cool PeaceBuilders t-shirts. |
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The remarkable thing about the Kroc Center Camp is how well all the children, most of whom have never met each other before their week-long camp session, get along. This is a culture of kindness. The camp counselors treat each other and every child with whom they interact respectfully.
Andrea Sanford and the camp counselors at the Kroc Center are responsible for reaching hundreds of children each year with a message of peace and a set of skills they can use to build their own peaceful environments. For that they receive our praise and thanks.
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