First Posted: 6/30/2014

Tori Hood, 14, said Olympics week was probably her favorite theme at the Waverly Community House Comm Camp last year.

That’s not surprising, as she has played sports all her life and participates in softball and soccer and is trying out for a volleyball team.

Last summer was her first experience as a counselor-in-training (CIT), and Hood returned to Comm Camp again this year on June 30 for six weeks of camp. Each week’s activities revolve around a new theme, which this year includes “Comm Camp Olympics,” “Comm-istry and Cosmos,” “Under the Big-Top Circus,” “Farm Frenzy” and “Time Travel Week.”

“I was pretty content with everything last year…I really don’t want anything to change,” she said of her experience in 2013.

As a CIT, the teen helped with lunches and looked after the kids when the counselors were doing other work, accompanied campers and counselors on field trips to Lackawanna State Park and assisted with art classes.

Her favorite age group, she said, was third and fourth grades in Level Three.

Why did Hood choose the CIT program at the Comm?

“I really like interacting and talking to people, especially younger kids,” she said. “I made a lot of friends over the summer last year. I thought it would be one of those awkward first experiences, where I won’t know anyone, but I realized a lot of my friends are doing it too.”

Maria Wilson, Waverly Community House executive director described Hood as, “Very good with the kids.”

“She has a very pleasant and positive personality,” Wilson said, “and is actually very mature for her age. She can be relied upon by the counselors to actively assist them with the kids. She knows how to engage with the kids in a way that is very enjoyable and she has a sense of how to be a team player.”

Hood will be a freshman at Abington Heights High School in September and in addition to sports, she plays the trumpet and ukulele.