Montréal: News from Happy Days Camp

By Fr. Richard Authier, SDB

(Montréal, QC – July 19) – Greetings from Montréal's Happy Days Summer Camp. Our camp is under the responsibility of the Don Bosco Youth Leadership Centre (DBYLC).

Our summer program operates started on Monday, July 3, and will end on Friday, August 11. Over 500 children and teens have registered, and we have an average daily presence of about 350 campers.

We are proud to have 50 coordinators and animators care for our young people. They were prepared by a two- month formation program. During these formation weeks, we covered topics such as learning games and songs, rehearsals of safety protocols, daily planning of activities, first aid training, Don Bosco and the Preventive System, a full-day Salesian spiritual retreat, and safe environment formation.

One of the important characteristics of our summer camp is "Faithspace," a weekly catechism class where we try to go over the most important parts of the teachings of our faith. Plus we have Mass every Friday with our 350 children and teens. Again, we try to find creative ways to reach out to the hearts of the campers—with lively songs, little skits at homily time, and a strong presentation of Don Bosco, Mary and our Salesian saints. The respectful participation of the campers and leaders encourages us in our evangelization efforts.

This past Friday, we had a very special event. Building Manager Mr. Sam Brown put together a huge model of an aircraft carrier with small jet planes that had to land on the carrier. Kids of all ages tried to safely land their plane on the carrier!

As of Monday, we have reached the first third of our program, with four weeks to come. Please keep all our campers and leaders in your prayers . In turn we will pray for all the other summer programs in our Salesian province.