Many homeless parents in Baltimore City depend on free summer camps to give their children a place to go during the day.
The Y of Central Maryland runs a camp for homeless students 14 and older. For more than 100 years, St. Vincent de Paul served homeless campers from three to 11 years of age. Neither program served homeless students aged 12 or 13, until St. Vincent expanded its camp this year.
Many of the camp’s activities take place in Patterson Park, which is across the street from St. Vincent. On a sunny day last week, more than a dozen 12 and 13 year olds, dressed in lime green t-shirts with Camp St. Vincent emblazoned on the front, worked at a long picnic table on a reading assignment. All of them live in homeless shelters or temporary housing. A bus brings them to the all-day camp, where they work on their math and reading skills, do arts and crafts, go swimming and take weekly field trips.
Some of the students occasionally talked out of turn during a reading lesson, but 13-year-old Eric Weaver worked on his assignment quietly at one end of the table. Weaver lives in a building for homeless families where he shares a room with his mother and two brothers. “I’d probably be sitting at the house waiting to do something (if the camp had not expanded to include his age group),” Weaver said.
Last summer, he spent most days in city parks. “We'd play kickball, baseball, soccer or be on the playground with my mom. If it rained, we would stay there and if it was super hot, we couldn't go nowhere because I got asthma and my brother does too. We would stay at the shelter,” he said.
That’s was summer life for most homeless students Weaver’s age, according to the camp’s director, Vena Carter. “They had no choice,” Carter said. “We have some sites where they can't be in all day. Some might be out on the streets and hanging out in places they shouldn't be.”
Two years ago, the camp was the reason 11-year-old Nadirah Heidelberg didn’t have to spend her days on the streets or in parks. But last year, at 12, Heidelberg was too old to participate in St. Vincent’s camp, so she spent the summer with her grandmother. “I felt bad because I really wanted to come,” she said.
She was “excited” when she learned the program expanded to include her age group this year. “I like everything about the camp and missed being here,” she said.
Nadirah's mother, 44-year-old Charlene Jones, said her family has been homeless for four years. She welcomes the expanded program because now at 13, Nadirah is only in the sixth grade. Jones said she receives much needed academic help at the camp that she didn't get last summer. “She'll do more at home after she leaves camp, like the first year she was here and this year,” Jones said. “She'll come home and she'll do work she got and she'll say, ‘Mom I learned this in camp.’ So it's good that they don't just play but do work. I like that.”
St. Vincent received a $50, 000 grant from the Weinberg Foundation to open up 22 slots for 12 and 13 year olds this summer. Because such “tweens” experience many physical and emotional changes as they see-saw between childhood and adolescence, Carter said their program offers a lot of flexibility. “We have to make sure we give them their opportunity to talk about what they would like to do within the group. Even though our group instructors have lessons that they do, sometimes they have to modify them to meet the needs of the kids,” Carter said. “These particular youths need a lot of positive praise, they need a lot of reassuring, and if something doesn’t hold their attention, we tweak it.”
In addition to group discussions where they talk about their problems, the 12- and 13-year-olds take excursions, such as a full-day workshop at the Hippodrome.
Za’myai Elliott, who wants to be an actress someday, said she enjoyed learning about the theater world. “I’d never been to the Hippodrome before,” Elliott said. “We did a tour of the Hippodrome, played acting games, put on makeup, and they told us how the actors do (costume) changes in plays, so I liked it.”
The campers will also visit Stevenson University later this summer to learn about college life. In addition, they participate in community service projects that count toward the hours they need to graduate. One of the projects involved the students designing recycling boxes to collect recyclables throughout Patterson Park.
Charlene Jones says the program is exposing her daughter to many things she wouldn't have experienced otherwise this summer. “She probably wouldn't have did nothing,” Jones said. “I'm so glad she could come here. This place is a blessing.”
St. Vincent officials hope to raise funds to continue the program next summer.