This summer I had the privilege of being a volunteer for a second year at Camp St. Vincent. Camp St. Vincent is a summer camp for boys and girls ages 5 to 13 living in shelters or transitional housing in Maryland. The camp itself is run out of the St. Vincent DePaul Head start building in downtown Baltimore City. On days when it is neither too hot, nor too rainy, the campers spend the day outside in Patterson Park.
Each morning the volunteers arrive at camp at 8:30 in the morning to help set up for the arrival of the campers. Sporting our blue “Camp St. Vincent Volunteer Shirts,” we carry across pop-up tents, coolers of water and large totes of books. We go to our designated group table. Groups are determined by age. Group A consists of campers that are five or six years old, whereas group F is made up of campers that are either 12 or 13.
Throughout my two weeks and scattered days at camp, I worked with the kids in group F. Each morning as they came off the buses, I would look forward to seeing them, as they either ran up to me to give me a hug, or quickly walked away showing their lack of enthusiasm about the entire situation. An onlooker would believe that some of these kids certainly were not happy to be at camp, but that onlooker would most likely be wrong. Each kid has a bad day every now and again, or complains about being at camp, calling it dumb, or stupid, yet we have heard from the heads of the shelters to which they return, that the campers come home raving about their day at camp and sharing the activities of the day.
One of several activities that occurs weekly at camp is dance class. Each Wednesday morning the kids are led through a dance class with an instructor. Some kids love getting out there and putting on a show while there are the few who cling to the counselors, sulking on the floor in an effort to get out of their class. It is moments like these where you are able to see just how important it is to these kids that they get to spend time with counselors, who are willing to encourage them to have fun, and step out of their comfort zone and not to always take life as being so ominous and scary.
The fleeting moments like these in dance class, where a circle of supportive faces and clapping hands surrounds that one kid who shows off his incredibly impressive dance moves are the ones which make camp so special. The connections which can be achieved between a camper in need of support and encouragement and a counselor who wants to help the camper to feel supported and encouraged are some of the deepest I have ever made.
There are countless sassy remarks and stories which will remain in my memory forever, yet some of the simplest dialogues were the most important to me in my time at camp. There was one camper who seemed somewhat shy, and different than the others. Not in an anti-social way, he just had a manner which seemed to say that he was aloof from any drama which occurred in the group (There were plenty of love triangles, to say the least.). I continually asked him how his evening had been and what he had done, and he would talk about his older brother and him watching movies together as their mother would cook them dinner, often Puerto Rican dishes. One day he told me about how she was pregnant and continued onward to talk about the details of her pregnancy, such as her delivery date, and that the child would have lots of clothes because his mother’s friend had given her baby clothing. He spoke of how excited he was to be an older brother, and that he hoped the baby would be a girl. Then, we got into his own life as a younger child and how he had recently moved from New York but was planning on moving back soon, how he and his older brother had a different last name because their father wasn’t there for the birth of his younger son. It was at moments like these where I wished I could help—I wished that I could make it so that there was certainty in these kids’ lives. Ultimately though, I realized that I was doing more than I could ever appreciate just by standing there and talking to the campers, reinforcing the idea that throughout instability and difficult home lives, there truly are people who would give them time to speak and complain, worry and laugh.
