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Day camp helping support and teach homeless children
By Mary Ann Ford
mford@pantagraph.com
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BLOOMINGTON -- Three-year-old T.C. Camp wants to go to day camp even when it’s not open.

“He loves it there,” said his mother, Leeta Jackson. “He loves the bubbles. They took him to Tai Kwon Do the other day and he loved it.”

Jackson likes that she gets a break from the 24-hour job of motherhood. She’s trying to get her life back together since the family ran into financial problems and lost the apartment they rented in Bloomington. They are now living at the Billy Shelper Center at Home Sweet Home Ministries.

Julie Roth, vice president of client services at the agency, hopes what T.C. learns at day camp will help him avoid what often becomes the circle of homelessness for families.

“We’re consistently trying to evaluate why clients come to this stage of homelessness,” said Roth. “When we looked at the largest ripple effect, we knew we had to try to reach the children with us now.”

That led to the creation of the agency’s six-week summer day camp. Four college students helped develop the curriculum during an internship in the spring. The program includes such focuses as developing proper social and interactive skills and the importance of good hygiene.

The camp is geared toward children older than 2. The number attending fluctuates with the number of families at the Billy Shelper Center but recently there have been about eight children attending each day. Volunteers, including several from Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University, operate the day-to-day program, which meets 9 a.m. to noon weekdays.

“At the end, we’ll see what worked and what needs to be improved upon,” said Roth. “We hope there will be a fall/winter component.”

A long-range goal would be to open the day camp to families in the neighborhood around the center, 303 E. Oakland Ave.

“Our realistic hope is that (the kids) will have gained at least one way to cope, learn to interact and apply it and that parents will see the difference” and have renewed hope and desire to continue to become self-sufficient, said Roth.

Stacie Franzen, whose 3-year-old daughter, Sammi, attends the camp, hopes her daughter learns the art of sharing and learns how to express her feelings and anger in appropriate ways.

The two moved to the center after Franzen left an abusive relationship.

“I want to find stability for me and my daughter,” she said. “I want to find someplace to live, a job and put her in school. She loves going to (day camp). It’s very convenient for me … I get things done quicker.”

Stephanie Valentin, who helped develop the curriculum, said she’s seen some progress in the kids.

“They’re not foreign to ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and there’s an itty bitty more sharing,” she said. “They love coming.”

So do the volunteers, including Kristyn Miller, who is on summer break from her job as a Ridgeview Junior High School teacher, and ISU students Rebecca Denney, Kristopher Kusch, Alexis Santiago and Ariel Johnsey. Each is volunteering without college credit.

“I had extra time this summer,” said Miller, who found out about the opportunity at her church.

“It’s more experience besides the clinicals,” said Johnsey.

Take a look
Rebecca Denney of El Paso, a Illinois State University sophmore working in the service learning program as a volunteer at the Home Sweet Home Ministries, plays with 2 year-old Hamata Jackson during a kids program Wednesday July 9, 2008. The Pantagraph/STEVE SMEDLEY
Ariel Johnsey, a volunteer at the Home Sweet Home Ministries, holds Nijah Jackson, 1, during a nap. The Pantagraph/STEVE SMEDLEY
Kristyn Miller, a volunteer at the Home Sweet Home Ministries, holds Mary Jane Murphy, 1, as volunteer Kristopher Kusch of Bloomington plays with the children during the new kids program Wednesday July 9, 2008. The Pantagraph/STEVE SMEDLEY
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Reader comments on this story - 1 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Dave wrote on Jul 14, 2008 9:41 AM:

" It's so much better to help these kids while they are young than to feed them in prison while they are old.
This is Christlike. They're doing what He would have us do.
If every Church in BN would involve their talents and money in ministeries like this a huge dent would be put in the gangs and violence and suffering in the area. "
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