After receiving a grant from General Mills, the community has come together to create a summer camp for children living in the University Village Apartments, 722 N. Annie Glidden Rd.

Camp directors Mary Hess, Lisa Cummings and Nancy Prange applied for the 2014 Champions for Healthy Kids Grant in March. They received the $20,000 Grant on May 31, and started Camp Power two weeks later.

The camp is open to all children between the ages of five to 18.

Camp Power uses equipment and curriculum during their camp sessions modeled after CATCH, a program focusing on reducing child obesity.

Kids stay active with their counselors by learning the fundamentals of multiple different sports such as basketball, football, tennis, soccer, hula hoop/jump rope and dance. At the end of the summer, they will play these sports in a junior Olympics.

The idea to start the program came from the DeKalb police chief Gene Lowery and the Youth in Need Task Force after they noticed increasing crime and poverty within the University Village community. Cummings said University Village is the second most federally funded housing area in all of Illinois.

“We wanted kids to be physically active, and we wanted to incorporate nutritional education in a very structured camp setting,” Cummings said.

The camp also does weekly field trips, including walks to Huskie Stadium, to meet and play with NIU’s football team.

Each week, local organizations adopt a week through the camp to come and visit the children. The Kiwanis Club, DeKalb County Police and Fire Departments and Mayor John Rey are booked to visit campers throughout the summer.

With the grant, the camp has been able to hire 10 NIU students as counselors to help with the camp. The students have prepared for their jobs by training with the Kishwaukee YMCA.

“Just seeing them really happy and smiling, enjoying their day makes me smile,” said senior nursing major Claudia Naykene. “As long as they’re having fun, being active and eating healthy, I feel like my job is done.”

Camp Power has also received funding from and partnered with many organizations like the DeKalb County Community Gardens and Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.

“So many amazing things are happening out of [Camp Power], and I think one of the things that’s the most inspiring to me is that the community has wrapped its arms around it and embraced it,” Hess said. “I’m just so incredibly proud of our community.”

The camps is currently running from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. until August 14.