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More than 20 Fort McCoy family members learned important life skills while participating in summer 2019’s Centershot archery program, held at South Post Family Housing.
Centershot is a chaplain-sponsored program designed to teach archery and life skills while helping children develop self-esteem and character and form closer-knit families, according to program objectives. It was created by Centershot Ministries, “a nondenominational outreach program that shares the Gospel of Jesus using the life skill of archery,” according to its website, www.centershot.org.
“The Centershot program has been going now for about six years (at Fort McCoy),” said Chaplain (Maj.) Robert Rand with the garrison Religious Support Office (RSO).
RSO staff members organize the event and help train the volunteers. More than 20 children participated in the program during the summer, along with 12 adult volunteers.
The Centershot program has 11 steps, each focusing on a different archery and Biblical lesson.
“In those 11 steps, we take the opportunity to show them a foundational Christian base, so we share the Gospel through that eight-week session,” Rand said.
“Each lesson is tied to what we do,” he said. “In the first week, we learn all the safety stuff. … The following week is when we introduce the Bible study.”
Each archery lesson is tied to a spiritual lesson. For example, Rand said that one of the lessons the children learn is that everyone has a dominant side of his/her body. This equates to how people have strengths and weaknesses in their spiritual lives, as well.
Volunteers are trained on safety procedures before the program starts.
The program uses whistle commands to let children know when it’s safe to step forward to the shooting line, and only when children are at the shooting line do they get arrows to shoot.
“We ran a very safe program for the kids,” Rand said. “It’s one of the safest programs out there.”
Rand said that both parents and children enjoyed the program a great deal, and he hopes to keep it going in the future.
“At the very end of the program, we have a finale, and the kids really enjoyed when we took them out to the outdoor archery range to shoot at the animal targets,” he said. “Imagine a 7-year-old kid pulling back a 20-pound bow and shooting an arrow and actually hitting the target. “
Rand said he currently plans to hold future sessions on Tuesday evenings, but that can be changed if people prefer a different night. The program is open to the children of any Department of Defense personnel, both military and civilian, who work at Fort McCoy.
If the program gets enough interest, the RSO would like to run three programs each year: one each in the spring, summer, and fall, Rand said. Each season’s program follows a different syllabus so children who wish to participate in the program again will experience something different, Rand said.
Rand said he would also like to develop a competitive archery program for Fort McCoy youth. Children who enjoy the Centershot program could continue with archery by competing in area competitions.
For more information about Centershot, including upcoming sessions, call RSO at 608-388-3528.
| Date Taken: | 10.23.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 10.23.2019 14:39 |
| Story ID: | 348882 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 47 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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