Share
Margaret Morrison knows exactly how much the summer camp experience means to kids.
Her own daughters – now 39 and 41 – still talk about their times at a church summer camp at Seabrook Island, off the coast of Charleston.
When the girls became too old to go as campers, they returned as counselors. The family even took a vacation at a resort next door to the camp one summer, where her then college-age daughters had fun just watching.
That's why Morrison, who lives in Charlotte, contributed $25 to The Summer Camp Fund. A new initiative by The Charlotte Observer and the nonprofit Partners in Out-of-School Time, the fund will help children from low-income families throughout the Charlotte region attend outdoor camps.
The idea is similar to the decades-old Fresh Air Fund in several Northeastern cities that has introduced thousands of low-income kids to the outdoors and helped them gain confidence learning new skills.
Morrison had some indirect experience with that during her college days. She worked in New York one summer with low-income families – and was happy to see children had a chance to go to summer camp in Pennsylvania.
She likes the idea of community members doing what they can to help send kids to camp: “If we all get together, it will work.”
