Sleepaway camp offers homeless kids a place to belong

Sleepaway campy offers haven for stateless kids

Sleepaway campy offers haven for stateless kids 03:31

Back-to-school play is successful afloat plaything crossed the country, which means summertime campy play is coming to a close. For galore kids, camps are a location distant from home, but for some, they are the lone location they know.

Camp Homeward Bound is simply a summertime sleepaway campy designed specifically for children who travel from New York City homeless and home unit shelters.

Cici Johnson, 17, is present a counselor, but was conscionable 8 years aged erstwhile she archetypal arrived arsenic a camper herself.

"As I grew up successful the shelter, I realized that I didn't person an existent home. Coming to campy made maine recognize that this campy could beryllium my location for the clip being," Johnson said.

The Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit, opened the campy 41 years ago. It's funded done donations.

"We've had kids present who person experienced maltreatment — carnal abuse, intersexual abuse. Some of the kids person been successful the structure for six years. They truly suffer their childhood," said Beverly McEntarfer, who has served arsenic campy manager for 19 years.

Childhood is cherished astatine the camp. Elijah Martinez, 11, enjoyed a rite of transition he'd missed astatine home: biking.

"Where I stay, nary 1 lives adjacent me. All my friends are acold away. But present I get to bid with my friends," Martinez said. "It feels comforting, due to the fact that I person idiosyncratic to really beryllium with."

Connection isn't the lone payment — activities boost assurance arsenic well.

"Here we bash enactment a batch connected quality building, and conscionable saying to someone, 'You're courageous,' conscionable to assistance physique them up," McEntarfer said.

After 2 weeks, the campers committee buses for the thrust backmost to the world of their lives successful New York City. Yet Cici Johnson says the assurance she gained has stayed with her. She plans to go a pediatric neurologist.

"I anticipation they recognize that they bash not merit what they're going through," Johnson said of the campers. "Yes, immoderate things tin beryllium hard, but things volition get better, adjacent if they don't consciousness similar it will." 

• Homelessness