Summer Camp

Glenn Foley said Friday that he has stepped down as Valley Forge Military Academy's football coach after one highly successful season. He declined to comment on the reason or reasons behind his abrupt departure. "That's between me and the school," Foley said. It was just time to part ways. It was an amicable parting. " Athletic director Dominick Lorusso did not return multiple phone calls. In an e-mail, he referred questions to the school's director of marketing and communications, Jennifer Myers.

Exploring outer space, creating a circus and learning about things that fly are just some of the activities planned by the Tredyffrin Township summer camp program. The program, which has been operating for more than a decade, has two programs, one for preschool children ages 3 to 5 and one for elementary school children ages 6 to 11. Sherri Ruppe, coordinator for the camp, said the preschool program would be behind the Strafford Library. "The preschool camp is stressing group activities, arts and crafts and music," she said.

At first glance, Camp Carrousel looks like a typical summer camp with children singing, playing games and doing arts and crafts. But a closer look reveals games with unusual sounding words - dans le jardin, laitue and a singing Napoleon avec cinq cent soldats. Soldats (soldiers)? Laitue (lettuce)? Dans le jardin (in the garden)? Camp Carrousel has an international flair for its campers - because everything is in French. "Bonjour, bonjour," shouts Josette Pestalozzi, one of the teachers, as she greets the children with a hearty handshake upon their arrival at the camp at Shipley School in Bryn Mawr.

My daughter is only 8, but she has already felt the cruel sting of rejection. "At this time, we have acceptances out for all spaces available in both sessions of Creative Campers," said the letter from the Holton-Arms School's summer camp. The day camp offered to put my daughter on the waiting list. It was Jan. 27. This called for handling the matter in a uniquely Washington way: paying to play. The Smithsonian's camps, it turned out, would give a registration head start to those donating "to the Smithsonian Associates at the Contributor level ($300 or higher)

It arrives, finally - summertime! An enchanted realm stretches before us: a landscape washed in golden sunlight; a languor of long lazy afternoons; flocks of birds and clouds of butterflies; nights cool and fragrant; mornings miraculous with dew. And a sudden dazzling explosion of color: blossoming trees, green-shadowed woods, flowering meadows and a vast overpowering cerulean sky. Summertime. And summer camp. During the first two decades of my life, the '30s and '40s, poliomyelitis was a frightful scourge made all the more horrifying in that most of the afflicted were children.

They won't be wearing swimsuits or shorts, but summer fun will be on their minds when representatives from 40 summer camps meet at the Tredyffrin/ Easttown Intermediate School on Tuesday for the third annual summer camp fair. Sponsored by the Devon Elementary Parent Teacher Organization, the fair will be from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria at the intermediate school in Berwyn. "A lot of parents ask each other what their children are doing in the summer," said Judy Tilles, chairwoman of the event.

This summer 300 Philadelphia children will travel to Africa - without ever leaving their neighborhoods. For the first time, computers are being added to the curriculum of the Summer Urban Neighborhood day camp so that children can use high technology to study Africa and African American history makers. At a news conference in the offices of the NAACP in North Philadelphia yesterday, a coalition of local businesses and organizations announced plans to expand the curriculum and triple the number of participants, from 100 to 300. The S.U.N.

For generations of summer campers, the greatest act of love that a mother could perform was sending brownies from home. But times have changed. For those mothers with precious little time for homemade gifts, or for who perhaps have time but don't know what to send, there is Giftpak Industries in Jenkintown. For anywhere from $5 to $22, Giftpak Industries will assemble and send a care package to youths in summer exile. Contents of the package vary, depending on the age and sex of the youth.

To be gay and Christian at the same time can feel like conflicting identities, but a weeklong summer camp in Minnesota gives teens license to be both. "For some of these kids it's perhaps the first time in their lives they can be truly authentic," said the Rev. Brad Froslee, co-director of the Naming Project Summer Camp, a place where young people of all sexual orientations and gender identities can share their faith. The camp on Bay Lake near Deerwood, Minn., had been operating quietly since 2004 until it was featured in early March on Lisa Ling's new Oprah Winfrey Network show, "Our America.

The sun will come out tomorrow in Oklahoma , Annie , if you and 101 Dalmatians wish (Once) Upon a Mattress during a High School Musical . They do seem to run together, the countless musicals produced in thousands of summer camps nationwide. But Moorestown Theater Company's Summer Stage Camp is stunned, surprised, privileged, and pleased to be one of only six in the United States staging a Disney pilot. That's pilot as in a live stage production of a musical that has not yet premiered on the Disney Channel.

A Delaware County man, who formerly taught at the Episcopal Academy for 20 years,  has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting four children at a Massachusetts summer camp 30 years ago. Richard P. Smith, 65, of Media, was charged with rape of a child, indecent assault and battery and other related crimes. He was arraigned and held on $10,000 bail, according to the Barnstable County District Attorney's office. In 1981, Smith was a counselor at Camp Good News in Sandwich when the assaults took place.

It began with an idea for a summer camp - a handful of kids getting a taste of Arab music and language for a few weeks at the Morris Arboretum, in the troubled times after 9/11. From a tiny beginning - the first camp, 10 years ago, attracted 18 children - Al Bustan Seeds of Culture has flowered into something unique in the United States, an organization that: maintains a resident ensemble of first-rate musicians versed in classical Arab music; offers a professional performance and residency series throughout the year with internationally known guest artists; conducts educational programs for adults and children alike; works with the Philadelphia School District to bring Arab language and music to the schools.

WICHITA, Kan. - Ron Baker could have said anything. He could have posed and reinforced the point with a couple pounds to the chest. He could have raised a finger to proclaim himself No. 1 and it wouldn't have been far from the truth, because when you deliver dagger after dagger while scoring 16 points to knock off Gonzaga, college basketball's No. 1 team, to get to the Sweet 16, you earn the right to celebrate. Surrounded by pandemonium, Baker's mind was clear when his postgame interview with TNT's Jaime Maggio concluded.

Sunday was to supposed to be the last day for Rancocas Nature Center and Park in Westampton, forced to close after 35 years for lack of funding. But the Cub Scouts visiting the 130-acre site Friday had no thoughts of farewell as they labored on their forestry merit badges. "We're still here," said John Courtney, a volunteer since the center opened in 1978. Projecting a $55,000 deficit at the site in 2013, the New Jersey Audubon Society, which has operated it for years, announced in December it would close March 31. Earlier this week, however, the Burlington County freeholder board announced a shared-services plan to keep the center and its trails and summer camp open.

Howard Gordon, 67, of Bala Cynwyd, a towel boy for the Eagles in the 1960s and a champion in Special Olympics, died Tuesday, Feb. 5, of a spinal-cord ailment at his home. Mr. Gordon, who had Down syndrome, was a favorite of Eagles players and coaches. In 1966, at age 20, he was invited to be a towel boy by then-owner Jerry Wolman and team vice president Ed Snider, who at that time was Mr. Gordon's brother-in-law. He held that position for about five years, said his sister Myrna Snider Thomas.

Ray Duval, 74, a prominent figure for decades on the Philadelphia theater scene, died Sunday, Oct. 14, of a heart attack. Born Nathan Goldiner, Mr. Duval spent his life learning the ins and outs of the theater, whether recrafting Broadway classics for young children, performing in area productions, or volunteering at theater companies or festivals. Mr. Duval was known as one of the faces of the Prince Music Theater, where he worked for the last 15 years as the house manager. "He always said that he needed to know how to do every job in theater in order to be a part of the industry," said Ron Hunter, Mr. Duval's partner for more than 45 years.

SHAWNEE-ON-DELAWARE, Pa. - With the fog still thick over the Delaware River, Gov. Corbett, joined by about a dozen state officials, all in kayaks, pushed off from the Pennsylvania side Friday morning for a 10-mile float downriver. It was Day Two of Corbett's 23-mile paddle along the Delaware, meant to promote tourism and highlight Pennsylvania's natural resources. "Hey, look at that," said Corbett, briefly breaking the silence on this undisturbed stretch of the middle Delaware in the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

SHAWNEE-ON-DELAWARE - With the fog still thick over the Delaware River, Gov. Corbett, joined by about a dozen state officials, all in kayaks, pushed off from the Pennsylvania side Friday morning for a 10-mile float downriver. It was Day Two of Corbett's 23-mile paddle along the Delaware, meant to promote tourism and highlight Pennsylvania's natural resources. "Hey, look at that," said Corbett, briefly breaking the silence on this undisturbed stretch of the middle Delaware in the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

Singer-songwriter Dar Williams is spreading the message that honeybees are stressed out. The species, whose plant pollinating is crucial to food production, is fighting pesticides, mites, and land development that has turned the insects' buffet into an office park. The bees can't take it. So Williams, not only a veteran folk-music songstress but also the daughter of a beekeeper, is doing her part to help save the species - one summer camp at a time. Her crusade has taken her to day and overnight camps from Nova Scotia to Michigan.

The water-torture of daily roster defections continued Thursday for Penn State's beleaguered football program when the Nittany Lions' leading scorer in 2011 departed for the University of Texas. According to multiple reports, punter-kicker Anthony Fera, an all-Big Ten Conference punter who as a placekicker was perfect from inside 40 yards in 2011, has informed coach Bill O'Brien of his decision. Fera, a Texas native who was a 2011 semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award and is a preseason candidate for that honor this year, decided to transfer even though he has just one year of eligibility remaining.