Literally, all my life I’ve had a beautiful summer place to go.

Thanks to my grandparents, I grew up sometimes spending months on a crystal-clear lake in the breathtakingly beautiful Haliburton Highlands in Ontario, Canada. At the time however, my nuclear family had emigrated to Connecticut–just a stone’s throw from the great state of New York and where I spent the rest of my year. My dad kept the radio on especially in the morning and I’d hear PSA’s for The Fresh Air Fund. It was hard as a child to imagine what it would be like stuck in the suburbs all summer long–never mind the inner city! Later, TV adverts made an even more indelible impression on me that I was exceptionally fortunate as there were many kids who were not.

After over 130 years of giving inner-city children the joy of a summer vacation with volunteer host families and at Fund camps, ‘creating unforgettable memories and fresh possibilities,’ no one needs to remind the not-for-profit The Fresh Air Fund of what a fantastic difference spending some of the summer away from the city can make for children.

Please consider: Finding out more about being a host family:

Reach The Fresh Air Fund by phone between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST, at: (800) 367-0003

Mailing address is:

The Fresh Air Fund
633 Third Avenue, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10017

The Fresh Air Fund on: Facebook

The Fresh Air Fund on: Twitter

 

Read an excerpt from a recent news story on how summer resources for city youth are going to be even more scarce in summer 2011:

NEW YORK — A rising number of children can look forward to excruciatingly boring school breaks this year as budget crises in places such as New York, Washington, D.C., Houston and Detroit rob them of the activities and programs that have long defined summer in the city for urban youngsters.

Swimming pools are being closed. Recreation centers are locking their doors. Library summer reading programs are suffering. Openings for short-term jobs have evaporated.

Yet, with a shift in perspective, do the kids have to be on the losing end?

‘We can’t afford to have children who don’t have positive places to be during the summer’

In New Orleans, Mayor Mitchell Landrieu this year fulfilled a campaign promise to boost city funding for children’s recreation facilities and summer programs, despite the city’s economic difficulties. While last summer, about 700 children participated in sports and literacy activities through the city’s summer camps for children ages 5 to 18, this year the city is expecting to serve 5,000 campers with the help of local organizations, private partnerships and doubled city funds, said Gina Warner, the executive director of the city’s Partnership for Youth Development.

The city – where nine out of 10 recreation sites were damaged by Hurricane Katrina – will be opening 12 pools this year, up from seven the year before and three the year before that. And libraries will be coordinating with the city summer camps to keep children reading, Warner said.

Warner said that while her city faces the same economic struggles as its counterparts around the country, elected officials see the New Orleans summer programs as not only an investment in children, but also a crime-prevention tool.

“We’re a very tourism-dependent city, and so we can’t afford to have children who don’t have positive places to be during the summer,” she said.

SOURCE Article excerpt: HuffPost - ‘Budget Cuts Rob City Kids Of Summer Activities’