As summer time comes again, our School Resource Officers have delivered another fun and exciting summer camp for our middle school students through the On-Track program. The program,which is paid for by the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, aims to help selected students learn leadership skills, build self-esteem, fight their fears by taking on adventures, and make new friends.
The camp consists of two sessions, one for boys and one for girls, of two weeks each. Students enjoy a range of activities, including white water rafting (check out last year’s video!), a hike to Sliding Rock, community service activities and various other team-building activities that challenge the students to go outside their comfort zone. This year, we are highlighting their career day, where students learned about careers as a first responder and beyond. Campers get to see the tools of the trade of the DWI taskforce, including trying on “Beer Goggles,” (glasses that simulate vision at a BAC of 0.8-0.15%) the equipment, such as drones, that firefighters use to survey buildings for safety, and a K-9 unit demo showing bite dogs (at a safe distance from students), search dogs, and bomb and drug detection dogs. In the afternoon, after a lunch of fresh grilled burgers with the SROs, students got to see other career paths within law enforcement and beyond.
The career day is just one part of the On-Track Program that brings enriching summer opportunities to many of our middle school students. Through one-on-one relationships with the SROs, students learn to believe in themselves, their abilities, and their future prospects, as well as to gain understanding of how law enforcement operates and ways to keep themselves safe.