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The first day of July was about as close to a perfect summer day in the Norton Sound village of Golovin as you can imagine. Birds passed overhead under blue skies, and large silver fish slapped the glassy surface of Golovnin Bay.
Summer was in full swing, which for 9-year-old Elise would normally mean time in the water.
“I usually go swimming, and jump off docks and off the boat,” Elise said.
But two days last week looked a bit different from her usual beach routine. The Summercise program was in Golovin, which meant instead, Elise “played volleyball, played 'Do you have my teddy bear?', played tag.”
The Summercise program is a part-day summer camp run by the Nome-based tribal hospital Norton Sound Health Corporation. It has been in session for roughly 25 years and is funded by the Indian Health Service’s Special Diabetes Program for Indians.
In addition to several weeklong sessions in Nome, the program rotates through villages annually. This summer, sessions took place in Golovin, Teller, Shaktoolik, Gambell and Wales.
The camp focuses on chronic disease prevention and aims to teach kids healthy lifestyles.
“But really that just means the application of physical activity and nutrition lessons and education,” Summercise intern Anna McPherson said. “So as boring as that might sound, it’s really just an application of fun, perhaps learning disguised.”
McPherson is from North Carolina and studies global health and chemistry at Duke University. She is one of two Norton Sound Health Corporation interns who led the Golovin session.
The second, Zach Welsh from Louisiana, recently graduated with a degree in nutrition and dietetics from Louisiana Tech University.
“It’s really good exposure to living a healthier lifestyle in the future for a younger demographic,” Welsh said. “It’s disguised as, ‘Oh, we’re having fun,’ but at the same time they are learning some information.”
Welsh said the “learning disguised” model means playing games that get kids moving, serving creative snacks to teach basic cooking and nutrition, and using themes that kids already enjoy.
For example, a session in Nome featured a pirate theme. Welsh used it to teach kids about scurvy and the importance of vitamin C.
The group built a pirate fort, searched the beach for sea glass “treasure,” and talked about the disease often associated with pirates.
“It’s not necessarily a risk to these kids, but it was a pirate-themed deficiency related to a vitamin C deficiency, which you need from eating things like oranges or just citrus fruits in general,” Welsh said. “So it was just a fun education piece that I could wrap into the theme of the whole week.”
Two days in Golovin
On day one in Golovin, McPherson said about 20 kids showed up for the program in the Martin L. Olson School gym. They played games and ate “oatballs,” a snack made from oatmeal, peanut butter, honey and raisins. That night, the Summercise crew hosted a community-wide basketball tournament.
On day two, the group was smaller — just eight kids — who gathered in the school gym to play volleyball and do the limbo under a slowly descending pole.
At snack time, they sat outside in the shade under the school’s roof and passed around peanut butter, bananas and tortillas to make peanut butter-banana “sushi.”
“Everybody reach into this massive peanut butter container,” McPherson instructed. “And you are going to spread your peanut butter on half of your tortilla.”
The kids rolled the peanut butter-and-banana-stuffed tortillas into tubes, cut them into bite-sized pieces and drizzled honey on top.
Elise, who lists sushi as one of her favorite foods, said the twist on the classic “was good.”
As the day came to a close, Elise gathered her things and said she plans to attend again the next time Summercise comes to town.
“I had a lot of fun,” Elise said, adding that her favorite part was “probably getting a prize or playing games.”
The day’s session wrapped up around 2:30 p.m. Within the hour, Elise was back at the beach, swimming in the waters of Golovnin Bay with her friends.
