To start the second week of the Police Activity League (PAL) of New Haven summer camp, a group of about 70 ten-year-old campers observed the NHPD Dive Team take part in a training exercise.
"This is my first year here and my other camps really haven't seen this much fun," Nychelle Lowery said. "On a normal day, we would go swimming."
Monday morning the group of fifth graders took a field trip to New Haven's Fort Hale Park.
"I saw lots of the police officers go into dive and they were showing us how they tie the rope on them," Laiba Shah said.
The dive team's sergeant John Wolcheski narrated for the children as four divers in their heavy suits did their practice dives.
"Give them a little behind the scenes view of things that we do," he said, "how we operate in a unit that's not very publicized."
According to the camp website, the goals of this free five week program are to prepare the children to make positive decisions and to enhance the relationship between youth and law enforcement.
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"I have family who's police officers" Lowery said. "My little brother, I think he wants to grow up and be a police officer."
Some of the camp counselors are school resource officers.
"So whether they're building that relationship with the kid at the school or kids at the camp here, hopefully its something that carries on into these children's adulthood and into their generations to come," Wolcheski said.
