I have fond memories of it. It was a great experience for me, it was something I really enjoyed.
Keswick, in the Lake District
The organisation is called The Fresh Air Fund. It was set up in 1877 when a minister of a small rural parish in Pennsylvania asked members of his community to help out disadvantaged children from New York City by inviting them into their homes for a couple of weeks during the summer. The mission was a success and each year the number of host families grew, and by 1888 it was a well establised not-for-profit organisation run between the Reverend Parsons and the NYC government.
The organisation went from strenght to strenght, getting kids whose parents couldn't afford to take them on holiday out of the city for a few weeks each summer so that they could experience a different pace of life. Camps began to pop up in various states too, so that even if there weren't a lot of host families, plenty of disadvantaged children could still reap the benefits.
P. Diddy has spoken about how he used to spend his summers living with an Amish family when he was growing up as his mum sent him away with the Fresh Air Fund each year. He said: "I have fond memories of it. It was a great experience for me, it was something I really enjoyed."
It is now massive in America, spanning 13 states and Canada. 5000 children visited host families and 3000 went to Fresh Air camps last summer. Around 2000 took part in the all-year round camping programme as well. Serving 10,000 children each year is a great achievement, and the demand for it shows it is working.
There is a lot of green space and countryside in the UK and each summer for a few weekends out of the year we see children flocking to parks to play games and sports, but is this enough? If we were to bring a Fresh Air Fund to the UK a lot of families could take part in the activities, taking in children from inner-cities or sending children to a family in the countryside for a couple of weeks.
The community spirit that has been aroused by this organisation in America is incredible. It seems to break down the class barriers a little as children from the poorest parts of New York get sent to the wealthier homes in rural America where there is room enough for an extra child to stay and no money is exchanged.
The experiences and fun that are gained from growing up, or spending time in the countryside are important in life, espeically to children, when they have the imagination to go crazy and amuse themselves for hours just by doing simple activities like climbing trees and running around in a field. These are things that city kids don't get to do so much, so by implementing this sort of organisations activities, UK children could get to enjoy life in the countryside too.
Introducing city kids to the great outdoors would also increase the chances of their caring about the environment. In the 21st century there is a real stigma attached to having to see things to believe them. If all city-dwelling children see how wasteful people are in cities but not the outcome of destroying the countryside they won't care about changing it. However, if they see how great the countryside can be, and be introduced to a greener way of living they would be more likely to want to contribute to the environmentally friendly statuds cities continue to edge towards but don't have the backing for.
Everybody always talks about how the youth of today spend too much time on video and computer games, this would be a great way to introduce them to traditonal methods of having fun like playing games with friends, or sports with anyone around.
Really, only good things could come from a programme like this, so perhaps it will pop up in the UK in the future, and conquer more of the US too.
Even if this doesn't happen any time soon, maybe think more about the benefits this could bring to your children, and take them to the park yourself over a weekend in the summer, or out to the countryside in the spring time, and begin to encourage a better understanding of the great outdoors in them.
Tagged in America