Today, we officially announced the addition of keyboards to our instrument offerings at Rain City Rock Camp! Besides being so stoked to provide this option to everyone who’s asked about it over the years, I want to reflect on a few reasons why we’re launching this keyboard program this year!
First and foremost, we want to create more access for our programs. As many of you know, our camps fill up blazingly fast, and at their current size, our largest Summer Camps (20 bands or so) in Seattle require the work of around 100 adult volunteers a day to serve our campers, with each additional band requiring even more volunteers. By opening up a keyboard spot in each band, we can run programming for more campers while keeping the number of volunteers around the same, and providing better support for those volunteers and campers. Feels like a win-win to us!
Second, we are so excited to provide new opportunities for our returning campers and volunteers. So many of our returners have experienced camp so many times — and while we are always finding new ways to keep it fresh, the introduction of a whole new curriculum and instrument will totally change how our bands sound and the way our instruments work together, as well as provide another learning opportunity for more experienced folks. We are SO excited to hear what everyone will come up with. Are you a volunteer who wants to teach keyboards at LRC or Summer Camp? Let us know!
Third, thanks to generous donors and grants, we have an expanded gear budget that will allow us to begin purchasing the necessary equipment to offer consistent, effective education and confident performance for our campers on keys. Based on our other instrument teaching models, we’ll need about twenty identical keyboards to serve our current camp size and model, as well as cases, amps, and other associated equipment. We are exploring sourcing these as we speak, while keeping in mind that we are also maintaining and replacing other program gear.
We’re on our way, but your donations, as always, make it possible for us to keep offering innovative, supportive, empowering programming for youth and adults — if you would like to support the new keyboard program, or our programs more widely, please don’t hesitate to click on the link below.
And with that, we are SO excited to be embarking on this new chapter at RCRC! Do you have questions about our keyboard program or anything else at RCRC? Get in touch with us at programsupport@raincityrockcamp.org.
Sue
Program Director at Rain City Rock Camp
