GENESEE COUNTY/Bethany/Camp Hard Hat dedicates new bridge in memory of Rhonda Rittenhouse at the Genesee County Park

VIDEO–Friday’s Ribbon Cutting and dedication for the Rhonda Rittenhouse Memorial Bridge at the Genesee County Park near Pavilion D off Memory Lane. With 30 students who participated in Camp Hard Hat this past week. The 6th-10 grade students built a spillway bridge under the direction of GV BOCES Building Trades instructors Rich Monroe and Kelly Mileham. Rittenhouse was an RN for the Camp Hard Hat program, which is in its 11th year. Rittenhouse passed away this past year and is the mother of BEA Director, Karyn Winters who helped create the Camp Hard Hat program.

Press release

East Bethany, NY – Thirty rising 6th – 10th graders are using math, process thinking skills, power
tools, safety equipment, and the power of teamwork to build a spillway bridge near Pavilion D
at the Genesee County Park & Forest. Camp Hard Hat is a special partnership between
Genesee County Park & Forest, the Genesee County Business/Education Alliance, Livingston
Associates, Builders Exchange of Rochester, and GVBOCES Building Trades Program.

Karyn Winters(left) with this year’s group of campers on the spillway bridge named after her mother. Speaking to all 30 campers, Winters said, “I was floored. If you ever are as lucky as I have been, you have parents who love you tremendously, who made it a point to take you here to spend a week with us to hopefully learn something about yourself, to challenge yourself. And my mom, she did that all the time for me. you know why I feel fearless as an adult right now? Because she pushed me. And when I wanted to quit, she made sure I didn’t quit. Everyone who had the fortune enough to know my mom, who was the camp health director, she was quirky, she got the biggest kick out of watching you guys throughout the week and she was always thrilled when I would announce to her guess who is coming back to camp next week. Thats how I feel every time I see a camp registration roll in and I get to see you guys and how you have grown, It’s the greatest gift.”

Led by GVBOCES Building Trades instructors Rich Monroe and Kelly Mileham, Camp Hard Hat
promotes skilled trade careers and teaches local youth the value of learning to build a
community project with their hands. In addition to learning the principles of design,
construction, and safety, campers also learned more about different skilled trade careers from
guest speakers and industry leaders like Taylor McCabe from McCabe Enterprises Electrical
Contractor, Dustin Beardsley from Rochester Davis-Fetch, Bill Hayes from Genesee
Community College BEST Center, and Lindsie Cook and Stacy Kubit from Kubit Engineering.
Genesee County Park & Forest also provide nature activities for Camp Hard Hat students so
that they can also learn and appreciate all that the park has to offer.

Instructor Rich Monroe thanks his partner in crime Paul Osborne who has been one of the driving forces at the Genesee County Park behind the program.

“This doesn’t happen without everyone here,” says Osborne.

“This has grown tremendously, I mean we went from 10 kids to you know 20 kids, and we’re like where do we go from here, do we get to 25 and hold off, do we have big enough projects. Well, they keep telling me they want more, so I have to keep making bigger projects. It’s a fantastic relationship I think this hard hat camp is the best out of all the hard hat camps that are here.”

Thanking Jim Schmitt ACORNS Volunteer

Instructor Rich Monroe recognized everyone who helped out with a thank you card from all the student campers this year. Monroe says the first bridge they built in the park was about 10 years ago. Since then, they have done a few more and a few walkways and pavilions. “It’s a coin toss sometimes with kids, the kind of culture you’re going to get, but we’ve done this so many years that the kids that are coming are kind of coached by the kids that have already been here, so my old adage, I’ve been a teacher for 30 years, that good kids bring good kids. We had four kids on a waiting list for this camp this year. We’re at capacity we can only handle 30 of them and it runs smoothly with all the help we have.”