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Members of the Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program welcome Sagamihara Minami Children’s Home residents to their team before the start of a mini-Olympics event at the Youth Center at Camp Zama, Japan, July 24, 2024. The event had six sporting activities and a medal ceremony inside the center’s gym as part of an effort to build friendships in the local community. (Photo Credit: Sean Kimmons)
CAMP ZAMA, Japan – Just before the Olympic Games opened last week, Camp Zama volunteers helped local Japanese children get into the spirit by hosting a kid-friendly competition at the Youth Center here Wednesday.
Fifteen residents from the Sagamihara Minami Children’s Home attended the Olympics-themed event that had six sporting activities and a medal ceremony inside the center’s gym.
Several members of the Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program, or BOSS, and Youth Center employees set up the event and competed alongside the children.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to build friendships,” Spc. Lindsey Ruiz, the BOSS representative for the 35th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, said of the event. “I hope that [the children] had a fun time and enjoyed themselves here.”
The event also put smiles on the faces of volunteers who relished in the company of the energetic children, aged from 7 to 15 years old, as they joined them in competitions that resembled hurdles, rowing, shooting, the high beam, long jump and a relay race.
“Honestly, just playing with the kids [was the highlight for us],” Ruiz said. “I know that there are people who miss their families from home, so it gives us a good time to interact with kids and just learn more about them and see how we’re all the same.”
Camp Zama volunteers and residents of the Sagamihara Minami Children’s Home participate in a medal ceremony to conclude a mini-Olympics event at the Youth Center at Camp Zama, Japan, July 24, 2024. The event had six sporting activities inside the center’s gym as part of an effort to build friendships in the local community. (Photo Credit: Sean Kimmons)
About halfway through the event, participants stopped for a snack break during which they refueled on pizza, fruit and a cake with the Olympic rings on it.
Aritsune Matsumura, a staff member at the children’s home, said it was a special day for the Japanese children to have fun and learn about another culture.
“They don’t have any chance to mingle with foreign people around their facility,” he said, “so this is important.”
In April, BOSS Soldiers had also invited the children’s home to play dodgeball at Camp Zama’s Yano Fitness Center as part of another community service event.
While many of the children looked forward to the recent visit, Matsumura said a few of them who have not yet visited the installation did not know what to expect.
“For some kids this is the first time for them to come to Camp Zama, so they were a little bit nervous,” he said. “But eventually when the games started, they really enjoyed the event.”
The event also helped Soldiers gain a mutual understanding through playing sports with the children.
Spc. Ninclo Cevallos, a BOSS member assigned to the 38th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, recently arrived in Japan. The event was his first exchange with Japanese youths.
One thing that stood out and impressed him was the kindness the children showed.
“I love the kids and it’s so much fun,” he said of the event. “They are so young, but they have such good manners. They are very polite.”
As he looked around at the children, Cevallos said they reminded him of his nephew he helped raise back in the United States.
Cevallos added that these types of interactions are not only meaningful to the youth but also to him and the other volunteers.
“Maybe they will remember this for a couple of years down the road,” he said of the children. “So, for me, if just taking a little bit of my time does that for them, then I’d definitely sign up anytime there’s an event [like this].”
