To Write to your child at Camp Quinnahung, address all letters to:

Your Child's Name
Camp Quinnahung
c/o of University Settlement
250 Howland Avenue
Beacon, NY 12508-4146

To contact THE POINT while your child is at camp, call 718/ 542-4139

Departure: Saturday, August 5th at noon (leaving THE POINT to Beacon)
Returning: Saturday, August 12th at noon (leaving Beacon to THE POINT)
Please pick up your child at THE POINT between 2pm and 3pm

Camp Quinnahung 2002
by Angela Uherbelau
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
see photos

School may be right around the corner, but August still offers kids in Hunts Point a chance to escape the city for the woods. Registration was lively Friday at The Point, a community center in the South Bronx, as parents signed up their children for a 10-day sleep-away camp sponsored by the center at Camp Quinnahung in upstate New York. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation, proving that the summer ritual of leaving home for the country has lost none of its mystique.
 
Seasoned campers reconnected with shouts while newcomers hugged the walls. Four brothers, all old hands, crowed of their familiarity with bunk beds and campfires. When pressed for details, only the second oldest, David Gilmore, 12, could sit still long enough to talk.  

"Camp is better," he said. "They got the woods, swimming, gym, climbing the mountain, the kind of stories I like to hear." Most of the tales were ghost stories, told around the fire late at night. Asked whether he could recount some of them, Gilmore said, "Sometimes I get scared. Scary ones I would not remember."
 
The Point's camp started in 1991 and each summer serves about 70 kids from eight to 13. Most of the camp costs are covered by corporate sponsors like Variety magazine, the Gap, the Yankees and several local Hunts Point businesses.  

Waiting for a bus, first-time campers Christine Matthies, 10, Rene Eberhartt, 9 and Kendell Venable, 8, were convinced they knew what was in store. "It's gonna be like the army," Venable said confidently. "He means, like, the beds," his cousin Eberhartt added.  

Louise Matthies, Christine Matthies' mother and Eberhartt and Venerable's grandmother, was looking forward to some peace and quiet. An impressive smiling woman, Matthies teased the children. "Now I don't have to worry 'bout no kids hollering 'Can I have this? Can I have that?'" she said. Right on cue, her daughter piped in "Mama, can I have a dollar?"  

While parents and relatives of campers eyed a respite, counselors and camp administrators braced themselves for the onslaught of excited children. Two days before camp started, the staff was trained in CPR, first aid and how to address classic camp issues like homesickness.  

Counselors Edgar Rivera, a 28-year-old special education teacher and Natasja Rudge, a 17-year-old Bronx high school student, had special ways of helping campers fight the blues. "We encourage them to write letters home and get involved in activities," Rivera said. "Sometimes you need to talk and talk to them until you wear them down," Rudge said.  

At the 110-acre camp on Saturday, where temperatures topped 90 degrees, any longing for home seemed to be eclipsed by the allure of the pool. Wearing bright orange goggles and splashing in the shallow end, Venerable said that camp was better than the military: "It's different because you're having fun."
 
Days at the camp are structured with instruction in leadership, photography, poetry, music, drama, hiking and fishing. Dance is taught in a large open-air studio that faces an expanse of lawn and woods. Darkeem Dennis, 20, an Alvin Ailey trained dancer, has been teaching dance at the camp for four years. Several of his past campers now dance with companies, including The Contemporary Ballet Theater that performs in New Jersey and the Bronx.  

In addition to the educational opportunities, perhaps the most lasting influence is learning to live in a community with others - a lot of others. At dinnertime, the noise reverberating through the cafeteria rafters was deafening. Latecomers were greeted with a collective refrain: "Please be on time for your meals!"  

Campers were responsible for keeping their bunks and communal areas clean and setting and clearing the dinner table for meals. Paul Lipson, The Point's director, said, "Parents often thank us because their kids come home and start making their beds."  

Charles "Sippi" White, 51, who has been teaching fishing at the camp for 11 years, said camp is like one big happy family. Then he instructed a camper to pick up an extra bar of soap from the nurse because "you've got a smell 'bout you."  

David Gilmore, a seasoned camper, talked about the sights and sounds of camp that stay with him. He remembered the summer he saw his first deer and the main difference between Hunts Point and Camp Quinnahung. "Camp is cool," he said. "All you could hear was birds, chirp, chirp, chirp."

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