Comanche Youth Services Provides Spring Break Camp

Comanche Nation Youth Services held a spring break camp from Monday, March 17, through Thursday, March 20, at the Comanche Nation Tribal Complex.

Youth Services Director Dina Landers said it’s important for the Comanche youth to have a central location where they can meet, build relationships and learn from each other.

“As well as the activities we do, we do culture activities, wellness; we have some citizenship classes and educational STEM,” she said.

Some of those activities included drum making, presented by Prevention and Recovery, building greenhouses with the help of the Office of Environmental Programs and a presentation about physical and online safety from Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) and Southern Grit Advocacy.

“We had Hayden Cable come in, and she did art therapy with our students,” Landers said. “And then we also had Dakota Wahkinney, and he's a part of YK Media, and he came in and filmed and did videography with our students.”

She said her favorite activity was having the youth interview each other.

“So, I thought that was really cool to see, and it showed how creative they were,” Landers said.

Lulu Tahdooahnippah, a camper, said it was important to learn about MMIP safety precautions and how to protect themselves.

As for her favorite part about camp…

“Probably reconnecting with all my friends like here, like these are my cousins; I don't get to see them a lot, so this was definitely good times to reconnect and meet new people also,” Tahdooahnippah said.

Camp counselor and participant Arlene Schonchin said she enjoyed learning how to make drums.

“And we got to learn about our environment and our plants and how we're going to keep the environment safe and all that,” she said.

Schonchin said she enjoyed reconnecting with friends and seeing the younger group get involved.

“Seeing all the little kids just come and be happy to be a part of our culture and just to learn about our culture,” she said. “And I was really happy to see that they're engaging with that stuff, where they can…take it home and learn something new, and I really love that for them.”

The camp was broken up into two groups for different age-appropriate activities.