With children out of school for the summer, the Atmore Area YMCA is offering its annual summer program to keep minds and bodies active during the vacation time.

The summer camp will open its doors at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday with this year’s camp offering a different structure this year.

The structure of this year’s camp will surround teaching the children lessons dealing with life, Atmore Area YMCA Manager Ross Terry said.

“We have a lot of fun activities planned for the kids,” he said. “We changed it up this year and will teach the kids life lessons. We are going to teach them about respect, honesty and hard work.”

The life lessons will include different types of activities to continue the educational focus of the children.

One in-depth activity will include a watermelon patch that the children will handle.

The benefit of the groups hard work will be a chance to eat the watermelon after they have grown, Terry said.

“One of our activities this year will be a watermelon patch,” he said. “The kids are going to do all of the work. They are going to plant the seeds, pull the weeds and help raise the watermelons. When the patch is done , we are going to have a party and let the kids eat the watermelons.”

Another thing that the children will get weekly is a visit from a local minister.

The ministers will visit to give lessons from the Bible, Terry said.

“We are going to have a minister from the churches around town to come and speak to the kids,” he said. “They are going to give them about a 20 minute Bible lesson, which will help with our life lessons.”