The picturesque streets of downtown Plymouth were full of backpack-toting, green T-shirt-clad kid detectives on Friday. Day campers from the Plymouth Y made a circuit of the town to solve a mystery in a live-action Clue game.
The activity was conceived by running program director Julie Allen and camp director Lisa Zawisza. Both had come from the Livonia Y and done something similar at Livonia’s large and sprawling facility. Plymouth does not have a large facility, but it does have a beautiful, small-town historic setting walking distance to parks, the library, and the historical museum. Julie and Lisa decided to take advantage of that. The premise was that a large bag of “character cash” (scrip kids get for exhibiting Y values and can cash in for rewards) was supposed to be delivered to the Community Financial Credit Union in town, but it was missing. A group of campers was there for a field trip when they were told a call came in about the missing character cash, and they were asked to help solve the mystery.
They did so by visiting nine different stations with volunteers portraying historical figures from Plymouth. People like Phoebe Patterson, the first female justice of the peace in Michigan, Bessie Dunning, whose family donated the land for the city library, and John Hobin, who started the YMCA in Plymouth, were among the characters who told the kids important historical facts about themselves and their impact on the state or the city.
“It shows them all the cool and quirky things about the streets they walk down every day,” says Julie. “It made history more alive,” Lisa says.
At each stop they got a set of clues that would eventually lead to solving the mystery. The perpetrator was a police officer who found the bag and was looking for the owner. “We needed something kid-friendly but solvable,” Lisa says.
Lisa let parents know what was happening ahead of time, but the activity was a surprise for the kids. They would end up walking almost three miles and learning a lot of the history of Plymouth during the activity, and ended up the day at the Plymouth Historical Museum to learn more about the times of the people they learned about.
Julie wrote all the scripts for the characters, using a book a friend of hers recently published on Plymouth history as a source. “I have an 11-year-old and a 16-year-old, so I know what kids this age are interested in,” Julie says. “History can be boring if not done right.”
it was also a good way for the Y campers and counselors to connect with the community; unlike other branches that have facilities with pools and workout areas, the Plymouth Y is a community program based branch so connecting with the community is an important part of what they do. Every site had a Y sign to alert campers to the presence of a clue, and most of the kids were wearing YMCA shirts.
Julie also noted she was very grateful to the volunteers, who spent two to three hours at their sites as the campers came through. Even her own son played John Hobin.
The Clue game was an exciting way to wrap up day camp’s Mystery Week, and was fun and educational for everyone involved. There’s never a dull moment at Y day camp!