Fresh Air Fund Seeks Families To Host Disadvantaged Children

By Jan Howard

Families in Newtown are being sought to open their homes and their hearts to a child who might not otherwise have a summer vacation. The Fresh Air Fund is looking for residents to host children from New York City who have never known the joy of a summer in the country, the fun of playing outdoors in a yard, or swimming in the town pool.

Last summer, several area residents hosted disadvantaged New York City children and found the experience as enriching for their families as it was for the inner-city children. The Fresh Air Fund hopes to reach additional volunteer families this year so that more city children can experience country living in a friendly home environment.

In just a two-week period, from July 6 to July 20, a new world can be opened up to these children through what will become for them an unforgettable summer vacation. Though it is never difficult to find children in need of Fresh Air vacations, it is a challenge for the Fresh Air Fund to find host families to participate.

This summer, the Fresh Air Fund begins the celebration of its 125th anniversary year with special events. It hopes that more hosts will come forward to help commemorate this important occasion.

To participate as a host to a New York City child, contact Susan Dann of Bethel at 203-790-1465, Janet and Paul Haringa at 203-268-1259, or the Fresh Air Fund at 800-367-0003.

Hosts can request a boy or a girl, as well as the approximate age of the child. There are no financial requirements to host a child.

Children on first-time visits are 6 to 12 years old and stay in hosts’ homes for two weeks. Re-invited youngsters may continue to visit through age 18. Over 65 percent of all children are invited back by the same families, year after year. Many have extended visits or spend the entire summer.

Two local families who hosted for the first time last year maintained contact over the last ten months with their summer visitors.

Mimi and Paul Morin, and their children, Keira, 17, Chelsea, 15, and Bethany, 11, kept in touch with Annmarie, 9, who lives in the Bronx, through phone calls, cards, and packages on holidays.

“She calls us a lot,” Mrs Morin said.

Mrs Morin said she always sends Annmarie books, in addition to toys, stickers, and other gifts. She loved the C.H. Booth Library, and participated in its summer reading program. “She had never been in a library before except in school,” Mrs Morin said. “Her reading confidence grew, and she took a big pile of books home with her.”

Every day Annmarie wanted to go to the town pool, Mrs Morin said. “She took swimming lessons. Swimming was a big deal for her.”

Annmarie also loved the freedom of going outside by herself. “She had to get used to the freedom of just being able to go outdoors.” Mrs Morin said the first time she wanted to go out to the backyard, Annmarie stood by the door, thinking she couldn’t go out by herself.

  Mrs Morin said her family took Annmarie out to eat and to the Fresh Air Fund picnic, where she played games, rode the swings, and had her face painted. “We also did a lot with my extended family,” Mrs Morin said. “She just did what my kids did. We would get together with my family.

  “She loved having three big sisters,” she said. “At home she’s the oldest now because her older sister is married and lives in Puerto Rico.” Annmarie’s younger brother went to Maine through the Fresh Air Fund at the same time last year.

“She never had a moment of home sickness,” Mrs Morin said. The children are required to call home when they first get to the host home, she noted.

“She was so funny with my husband. He would tease her, and she would give it right back to him. Oh, and did she love the dog.”

Mrs Morin said she and her husband had talked about being a host home a couple of times in the past, but because their children were young at the time, they put off doing it. “Now with our two older girls teenagers, it’s good for Bethany to have a playmate,” she said. “Because we’d known about the program, and saw the kids having a good time around town, we said we can do that.”

Having Annmarie visit was an eye-opener for the Morin children, she said. “It put things into perspective for my kids. Hearing her talk made them aware of how lucky they are, and my children are more appreciative now of what we have.”

Mrs Morin said there were some adjustments that had to be made. “We’d go grocery shopping, and she’d ask for things, and I wouldn’t know what they were.” Mrs Morin said she would ask Annmarie what ingredients were in them, and she tried to duplicate them for meals.

Then there were the colloquial expressions she would use that Mrs Morin and her family wouldn’t understand, but that Annmarie would have to explain, mostly to Chelsea.

“She was an agreeable child,” Mrs Morin said. “But she liked to sleep late and stay up late. I had to wake her every morning a little earlier the first week,” she noted. “It was an adjustment for all of us.”

The Morins were hoping to take Annmarie to Vermont this year, but won’t be able to because of a conflict with swimming lessons. “She went a long way in one week last year. She jumped off the edge of the pool by the fourth day,” Mrs Morin said proudly.

Tom and Lisa Gissen and their children, Teddy, 12, Maura, 10, and Suzie, 6, hosted Chris for two weeks last summer, one week spent in Newtown and another in Vermont, where they hiked on Mt Mansfield in Stowe. They also took him to Vermont in January for four days of skiing and snowboarding.

“Chris was with us for two weeks, a week in Newtown and five days in Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont,” Mr Gissen said of last summer. “Chris preferred Newtown.”

Mr Gissen said that plans are already underway for what the family and Chris will do this year. “We’ll spend all two weeks in Newtown. We tend to use the pool a lot. He loved the pool. He’s happy if he can be swimming. We plan to do a lot more local stuff.”

A day trip to Lake Compounce is on the agenda as well as renting a boat for a day at Candlewood Lake and taking a day trip to Sherwood Island.

Chris also liked bicycling in Newtown and Vermont and going out to eat, Mr Gissen said. “We went hiking, but he’s not crazy about bugs.”

 Chris, an only child, lives in Bedford Stuyvesant with his mother, Mr Gissen said. Because his mother works, he’s not allowed outside a lot. “He was comfortable with our two acres. He likes that amount of wandering, but not much more.” Mr Gissen said Chris would call home every other day, but he was never homesick.

Shooting baskets in the backyard gave Mr Gissen, Teddy, and Chris a lot of quality time. Chris also enjoys playing PlayStation or Nintendo games and likes professional wrestling.

Of the winter trip to Vermont, Mr Gissen noted, “He and my son did snowboarding. He had a great time. At first he didn’t like it, because he kept falling down, but then he didn’t want to leave.”

In between trips, the family kept in touch with Chris. “Teddy calls him a little bit,” Mr Gissen said. “We sent him a card and gift at Christmas.”

Mr Gissen said his family decided to be a host family after being a financial contributor to the Fresh Air Fund for a number of years. “It’s just something we felt we wanted to do. We’re advantaged to live out here. It’s a good thing to do for someone without the same advantages, and it’s good for Teddy to have a friend.

“We feel it’s important that our children meet people who don’t have all the advantages we have,” Mr Gissen said. “We feel they should be exposed to more of the world. It’s an eye opener to the challenges that people face in different communities.

“We thought we were doing this with an altruistic goal, but we got out of it as much as he did,” Mr Gissen said.

Since 1877, the Fresh Air Fund, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million disadvantaged children from New York City. Through the fund’s Friendly Town program, volunteer host families in 13 states, from Virginia to Maine, and in Ontario, Canada, opened their homes to nearly 6,000 New York City children last summer.

Through the generosity of thousands of volunteer host families, inner-city youngsters enjoy a much-needed break from hot and often dangerous city streets, and often form bonds of friendship that last a lifetime.

The tradition of the Fresh Air Fund began when the Rev Willard Parsons, who was the minister of a small parish in Pennsylvania, asked his parishioners to provide a country vacation for some New York City children. By 1884, Rev Parsons was writing about the fund for New York’s Herald Tribune, and the number of children served grew. In 2,000, over 10,000 New York City children experienced the joys of summer in Friendly Towns and at five camps in upstate New York.

Children are selected to participate in the Friendly Town program based on financial need. Fresh Air youngsters are registered by 50 social service and community organizations in all five boroughs of New York City.

A committee of volunteers supervises each Friendly Town community. Committee members select host families after reviewing their applications, visiting them in their homes, and checking their personal references.

It costs the Fresh Air Fund $519 for a visit with a volunteer host family and $1,141 to send a child to Fresh Air camp. Over 80 percent of the fund’s contributions come from individual donors. Tax-deductible contributions to the Fresh Air Fund may be sent to 633 Third Avenue, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10017.