Pineview Home School in Evart, Michigan is a school for court placed boys. Some of the boys that attend this school were abused, while others have committed some type of a felony. The boys live in homes together on the campus of the school and spend the majority of their time at the school. They are allowed to participate in athletics and compete against mostly small private schools from the area. They field a soccer team and a basketball team. One of the things that I enjoyed doing most growing up was attending camps in the summer. Whether it was a week long camp with my friends from church or a day camp for different sports those weeks were some of the most enjoyable in my life. My greatest memories though, were going to basketball camps. I could not attend enough of them. The sense of belonging and responsibility that I felt while I was there is something that will stick with me the rest of my life. One of the greatest things I have gleaned from those camps, and athletics in general however,is a respect for the way they can build strength of character. I am trying to begin a basketball camp at Pineview Home Schools the week of July 3-7 where I will attempt to help the boys at the school learn the same lessons from sports that I have. The basketball camp will be free for the boys, and while I am not looking to profit from this venture, I do want to be able to give the boys the same things that kids at other camps would get, and if possible more for example shorts or basketballs. At most camps all of the attendees receive shirts at the end of the week that were covered in their registration fee and for some children the shirt was half the reason that they attended the camp. I also wanted to be able to give the boys trophies for embodying different character building traits I am trying to implement with the camp. Some of these traits are: Leadership - I plan on talking to the oldest boys who will be the captains of different teams everyday in an attempt to help them become better leaders to the younger boys. Responsibility - I will stress the importance of understanding that being responsible affects more people than just yourself. If the boys act responsibly (i.e. trying their hardest, being encouraging, not fooling around) they will not only be growing as people but they will be helping their team. Humility - I believe that humility in victory is far more commendable than humility in defeat and I will attempt to help the boys understand this. Teamwork - I believe that this combines all of the ideas discussed above. For there to be a good team each person must understand their responsiblity, the leaders on the team must step up and help along the other players, and the other players must be humble enough to accept the urgings of the leaders. Each day I am going to spend between ten and fifteen minutes talking about a different subject. The subjects are teamwork, accountability, respect, attitude, and hard work. I am going to implement different rules each day at the camp to help establish these values. An example of this is after the talk about attitude during all of the games that day if someone says something negative to another player his team will be docked one point. A large focus of the camp will be encouragement and building self-esteem because this is something that many of the boys struggle with because of their varied histories. While this is a basketball camp and I am going to help the boys improve their basketball skills I believe that far more important and harder to learn lessons can be conveyed in an easier to accept setting for these boys. I will try to combine learning the 'Jab-Step Series' with how to be humble after beating an opponent to the basket. I hope that I will be able to help the boys grow as individuals as well as athletes during this week and I appreciate your taking the time to consider helping me begin this camp. In the future I hope that it will turn into an annual venture, and possibly expand to other locations such as the Detroit metro area.