Community Corner

Friends Enrichment Program Puts Underserved Kids in Summer Camps

The Friends Enrichment Program of Moorestown Friends Meeting helped 27 kids, and their families, have a fun-filled summer.

“Why can’t I stay longer?”          

The girl didn’t want to go back home. She wanted to spend more time at summer camp.  

She is one of four Friends Enrichment Program (FEP) scholarship recipients who, earlier this month, attended a weeklong session of Camp Dark Waters, a Quaker residential camp nestled on the banks of Rancocas Creek, in Medford Township. The other three FEP children enrolled at Camp Dark Waters echoed the same sentiments when the time came for them to leave and say goodbye to their counselors and the many new friends they made at camp.   

“I’m getting calls for him from kids he met at Camp Dark Waters,” the mother of one of the boys said. Another mother remarked her 14-year-old son is hoping to return to camp as a counselor-in-training next year.  

So far this summer, FEP—a program for financially disadvantaged, underserved Moorestown children—has enrolled 27 children in summer camps for a total of 84 camp weeks. Some of the children are enrolled in more than one camp. They may be given swimming lessons at YMCA Camp Worth one week, and discover the joy of taking apart a broken appliance and creating a new machine from the sum of its parts at Camp Invention another week.     

In addition to the four children who attended Camp Dark Waters, the FEP 2012 campers list includes a child currently spending a week at Camp Haluwasa Overnight Christian Camp in Hammonton, a 188-acre woodland that includes three lakes, a white sandy beach, and a swimming area with water slides; a child who spent four weeks at Camp Y.E.S., a Bethel A.M.E. “affordable” day camp in Beverly that offers reinforcement in basic reading and math skills along with recreational activities, and with lunch and snacks included; 10 children are enjoying the last week of the ; and 13 are enrolled in YMCA Camp Worth, Sports Camp, or Teen Travel Camp—day camps that offer school-age children a variety of instructional and recreational activities and are geared to accommodate working parents.
  
Also on the campers list is a child enrolled in Boy Scout Troop 44’s weeklong Camp Rodney trip, in Virginia; another enrolled in a two-week session of Art Camp; a child who will spend one week at the World Athlete Track Academy Day Camp at ; and four children currently attending a weeklong session of Camp Invention at the Steinhauer Elementary School in Maple Shade.  

Camp Invention is the latest addition to the FEP list of summer camp options. It is an exciting choice for young, curious minds eager to learn more about our world, its workings and its limitless possibilities. Participants are involved in various programs, including Saving Sludge City, greening it up and rebuilding it into an eco-friendly city; Setting Sail to the Magnificent Island of Magnetropolis; Navigating a Volcano, Finding the Lost Treasure, and bringing a motorized creature to life in a secret lab!        

FEP offers full scholarships to children who have been active participants in the group’s program during the school year and, within budgetary limits, reaches out to new applicants. Of the children enrolled in summer camps this summer, 10 were added to the list in June and July. They came as replacements for some of the children that we had planned to send to camp but who moved away this past spring, when their families could no longer afford to live in Moorestown.    

Most of our families live on the edge. Some have experienced homelessness or are perennially at risk of being evicted from their lodgings. Some do not own a car or own vehicles which are unreliable to drive children back and forth to camp. Some parents work long hours, and some work seven days a week to make ends meet.  

Besides the 27 children who have attended or will attend summer camps this summer, two of our children, a percussionist and a violinist, are currently taking private music lessons at Perkins Conservatory of Music.   

FEP was created in 1997. It is a philanthropic project of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of Moorestown Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Large and small contributions from Friends and from the general public have enabled the program to survive and thrive even in hard times and to serve nearly 300 underserved Moorestown children, with many children benefiting from scholarships year after year.

For more information about FEP, call Moorestown Meeting at 856-235-1561, or FEP chairperson Monique Begg at 856-235-3963.

Courtesy of FEP chair Monique Begg


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