Katelyn Graves has known for a long time that she wanted to work with kids.
“I went to a Jewish day camp,” the Durham, North Carolina, native said. “I stated working at another camp when I started college. That’s where I fell in love.”
It’s no wonder, then, why Graves is happy to be The J’s new youth program manager, working with Director of Camp Youth & Families Mindye Mannel.
It’s not her first JCC job. A recent graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans, where she studied psychology and sociology, Graves spent a summer working at the New Orleans JCC camp there as well as teaching day school. She had previously been on the summer camp staff at the Levin JCC in Durham.
Her job here will be different. Graves and Mannel will work together on year-round family programming in the areas of enrichment, after school, parent’s night out and school’s out.
She hopes to “rebrand” the school’s out programming to include winter and spring break as well as days when school is off for holidays, service days and inclement weather.
She also plans to add additional programming for the family and elementary and middle school age children.
One program that’s already in the works is a BBYO/ Teen Connect “Kickoff,” a night out at a soccer game with Louisville City FC.
Graves said the event is designed as a bridge between kids entering their teen years and Jewish observance.
“We’ll get some of those new incoming sixth graders into the mix,” she said, “so they’ll include Judaism into their everyday activities.”