Two former Illinois Valley Community College campers returned this year in a new role — as camp assistants, IVCC said in a news release.

Over the last two years, Katie Sowers, of Utica, has spent her summer break from the University of Arizona employed as a camp assistant in IVCC’s Continuing Education Ed’Venture camps – still surrounded by art supplies but now providing markers and glue or guiding small hands through the tasks.

According to the news release, she has become an indispensable aide, launching junior rocketeers’ space adventures, burrowing along with them into the insect world, building battling robots or filming the next great movie.

As a child, Sowers would accompany her mother, Jennifer, to work at Continuing Education and Business Services, and was given small tasks like sorting campers’ name tags, the news release said.

Sowers said in a statement, the children’s excitement now reminds her of how she once felt. She watches as their shyness disappears and they flourish, meeting new people and trying new things.

“It is fun to see them get excited about the same things I did. Seeing them get the techie stuff so young is impressive. They go off on their own and figure out how to do things,” she said.

Cole Haynes, of Tonica, has fished since he was big enough to hold a rod, recently graduated with a business administration degree from Grand View University in Iowa and is planning his next step in life, the news release said. During his post-graduation job hunt, he volunteered as chief hook-baiter, fish-releaser, and casting advisor at IVCC’s fishing summer camp that his mother leads.

Haynes loaned his favorite tackle to a novice caster and watched as the youngster reeled in his catch, then, came in last in a race to catch the most fish.

“I think we made some sort of impact,” he said in a news release. “Even if it is just fishing, and not a skill that will get them a job, it is something they can carry with them that gives them a feeling of accomplishment. And nothing beats watching a kid catch his first fish and get excited!”

As a boy, Haynes could not wait until he was old enough to go to the camp Tricia Haynes led, the news release said. Later, he signed up for more camps anything that had to do with making things like art or food.

“The camps got me out of my shell. I was a quiet kid, but by the end, I was making friends,” he said.