One of my predecessors at NHQ is Lt Col Gerry Levesque. Some years ago he left his desk here and established the Sheldon Cadet Squadron in an inner-city Houston school. Today, it’s the second largest cadet unit in all of CAP, with 238 cadets. When you have such a huge cadet unit, you must be doing something right.
In his spare time, Gerry likes going to encampment. He’s been to 48 of them. As the cadet corps gears up for encampment season, Gerry shared with me some stats about his squadron. Over the past seven years in his unit, the retention rate for cadets who have attended encampment has averaged 92%, while the retention rate for non-encampment cadets averaged 28%.
So according to one of the Cadet Program’s most successful leaders, encampment makes a real difference for cadets. If you have a leadership role in the Cadet Program, please do everything you can to help cadets attend an encampment this summer.
PS: You'll find a list of all encampments that we know about at capmembers.com/encampment. To have your wing's encampment added to the list, please contact us.
Comments
The unit has, or at least did have, a pretty active parent booster club who helps with fund raising and the like. As far as transportation, the last encampment I was at he and his cadets arrived in a school bus. $300 for encampment? Wow. Is that in TXWG now? That's high!
The big reason some cost so much is that there are not many places to go. After trying military bases and go shot down, or any other place you could be limited as we are in AZ. Encampment is a good thing for retention, but the cost can be high.
I've been by his squadron a few times -- did a CAP-USAF unit visit there a few years ago and then went back as a CAP member while they were doing a Camp Curry a few months ago. It truly is impressive how they accomplish what they do, but the key to it: School support. The program is organized as an elective class, basically a JROTC for middle school. So, you get school funding, classroom/work space, and a captive audience (since the goal is to keep them in school, might as well do something fun). Also, Gerry made the point that a large percentage of the students are on the Free/Reduced Lunch, so they show up before school, have breakfast, and do CAP stuff. They meet during the day during their scheduled class time. Then, they hold their regular CAP meetings one evening a week (they still have cadets that have moved on to high school that come back to the squadron for the regular meetings). I don't exactly know how the funding for encampments work, but I would suspect some of it is "scholarship'ed" from the budget. I believe the cadets mostly go to the LAWG encampment since it's closer than TXWG, but they do crank out a large number. Because of the sheer size, Gerry had been talking about trying to host his own encampment at the school (and open it up to anyone else who wanted to attend -- since he already has the facilities, the only operating expense would be food and materials). I'm definitely on board if that comes about. Something else that's impressive ... the program advancement is very structured. Since we are dealing with school, there are very detailed benchmarks in between promotions (quizzes and the like). Everyone is built up for success when it comes time to test, and if they stick with the program see the Mitchell by the time they finish the 8th grade.
$300 a person? Arkansas Wing Encampment at Little Rock Air Force Base was $75 a cadet last year.
I agree, outstanding! However, this is an inner-city squadron and therefore I am assuming (possibly incorrectly) that money must be an issue here. How do they get that many cadets to encampment. Do they have sponsorship or incredible fund raising capabilities. Even if only 40% of his cadets attend per year @ $300 PER HEAD - that is 96 * $300= $28,800!
238 cadets!! That is amazing, the only question I have is how can they get 92% retention with that many cadets? Do they hold their own encampment, or can they transport that many at once? Congratulations to this guy, cause I agree, he is doing something right!