OutdoorsMen Camp

The OutdoorsMen Camp is back! We just had an amazing week jam packed of super fun activities! We were at a new location this year in Rockport, TX. Rockport Warriors United opened up their facility to us, and we were highly thankful! The OutdoorsMen camp focused on empowering young men to help propel them to have bright futures. Each activity last week focused on different life skills and parts of our life. Many walls were torn down, but each of us learned new things about ourselves. 

On our first day we settled in, and did an overview of the week with the group. We talked about goals, expectations, and ways to challenge ourselves during the week. Each of us shared words and different ideas to set ourselves up for success during the week. Later in the evening we had Ashley Chapa lead a yoga session for us. It was great fun watching the youth experience yoga for the first time, and learning how we can apply yoga to their lives. 

The second day was kickstarted with our first speaker, Alex Thompson. Alex is a local food truck owner, and a Corpus Christi native. He shared his story with us, and gave us tips and pointers about how to be successful. We really enjoyed listening to his words of wisdom. In the afternoon the youth participated in a scavenger hunt. Their mission was to find different items located in our area. Each item represented different things in our lives. At the conclusion of the hunt, we talked about how our findings relate to our lives. It was a fun activity, and it helped us learn more about each other and ourselves. 

The youth learned some crazy new skills today! They learned Jiu-Jitsu skills, and they learned belaying skills at our ropes course! Brown Belt Jiu-Jitsu instructor, Brandon Garza, taught us how to get out of three different head lock positions. In Jiu-Jitsu, he mentioned it is all about leverage and body positioning. He was showing us how even a much smaller human can work his way out of a headlock with leverage. The youth were fascinated by this, and had tons of fun learning the new skills.   

Our 2nd and final speaker came to visit us on our fourth day, Mr. Zamora. He is not only a biology teacher at Veterans Memorial High School, but the teacher of the year in Corpus Christi Independent School District. Mr. Zamora talked a little about his story, but his theme for us was about never giving up. His encouragement to the youth was to find something their passionate about, and pursue it with vigor. He mentioned kids are more successful in school and life when they are involved in extracurricular activities, clubs, or other organizations. We all took his message and story to heart because of how it much it relates to us in many ways.    

It is free day! ... well mostly! Earlier in the week we shared stories, but today we focused on our futures. This morning we did our legacy activity and shared our passions and goals. We enjoyed learning more about each other, and how we can help each other be more successful. Later in the afternoon, we took our kayaks out to Goose Island State Park! It was quite a windy day, but nothing us dudes couldn't handle! 

It was an amazing week, and we had tons of fun doing different activities together. From Jiu-Jitsu to movie and popcorn night, we had a blast. There were many takeaways from the week, and we learned a lot from each other. The kids had the opportunity to share with their families what they learned, and they received some cool awards! We look forward round 3 of OutdoorsMen Camp next year, and to many more activities together in Youth Odyssey!