Pack for a Purpose

Pack for a Purpose: Request for items to be donated to local Amazon school-children

Our CITs are going to Ecuador this summer at camp!

Beginning with our class of 2017, to foster enhanced leadership growth in an environment unlike any other, our CITs will spend a week of their summer in the Amazon Rainforest!

Manitou’s Leadership Program offers skill-developing opportunities like community outreach, certification, education, and off-season gatherings. Beginning with the thirteen and fourteen year olds, our goal is to lay the foundation for dedicated campers to become involved, passionate community members who possess the skill-set to be leaders both in and out of camp, and on their journey into adulthood. The pinnacle experience is the CIT summer where the boys live in a single, communal bunk and become the leaders of College League & Color War, the camp community, and Manitou’s local outreach. Being a CIT can have a profound impact on the decisions they make as they start to think about the years after high-school and adjusting to a different environment. For many past CITs, including ourselves, it was a year of tremendous personal growth, particularly in measures of self-confidence and perspective.

Manitou’s Core Values – Do the Right Thing, Make Everyday Count, Give Back, and Play for the Game – all guide CITs to become the best versions of themselves. Elevating our CIT Trip to include international travel to an Amazon Rainforest Eco-Lodge will enhance the fulfillment of these values while growing the boys’ empathy, resolve, and global view.

Pack for a Purpose: A Full Community Project

The lodge our CITs will stay and volunteer with partners with Pack for a Purpose. When Dave and Stephen visited the local village in October, they met students at the local school in need of several items we all have sitting in closets and garages.

We would like you to pack & donate old sports’ equipment and tactile toys on behalf of the Manitou Community.

Per Pack with a Purpose, “This project benefits the indigenous Amazon Pilchi Community School and the children that attend. The local community acts as a meeting point between all the homes that are spread throughout the Amazon jungle. In order for the children to attend they must walk up to an hour to get to the community center, or take a canoe for about half an hour. These children and their families choose to live as their ancestors did in the jungle but still want to offer a decent education to their families so that they are able to protect and conserve the area.”

As you pack, please place any of the following items in a separate plastic shopping bag labeled “Amazon” to be donated to local Amazon children by our CITs:

• Sports/Outdoor Activity Equipment (frisbees, inflation pumps, jump ropes, netball/basketballs, soccer balls, team uniforms/knits for soccer, tennis balls/racquets, whistles, etc.)
• Educational Games/Toys (bananagrams, chess sets, connect four, puzzles, scrabble, stuffed animals/soft toys, etc.)
• Hands-on Play Items (legos, blocks, nanoblocks, Duplo, k’nex, etc.)

We would also like to collect professional sports’ jerseys/kits. If your child has a NBA, MLB, MLS, NFL, etc. jersey that doesn’t fit anymore, please send in a bag marked “Amazon”.

Thank You

We are very excited to offer this opportunity to our campers! Throughout the summer, our CITs will plan and execute a local community carnival day in the Amazon. At this event we will donate the items and spend time playing with the children.

This is a great opportunity for you to discuss our Core Value Give Back with your child in preparation for their summer camper experience.