Photo by Dan Weir
This is a bit off of the normal topic for this blog, but I’m writing in case there are any of you out there who would like to donate money to help out in the aftermath of Irene but would prefer to give to a specific relief effort rather than a general relief organization. “Frost Valley YMCA”:http://www.frostvalley.org/ is an incredible summer camp/family camp/environmental education/elder hostel organization in the Catskill Mountains in New York. Over the years, it has run more programs to bring more kids to camp than I can recall. In the summers that I spent there, Frost Valley brought kids with dialysis and other kidney ailments to camp, kids with developmental disabilities to camp, kids from poor city neighborhoods who couldn’t afford camp (and many of whom had never seen a mountain before), children of incarcerated parents, etc. And this was on top of the tens of thousands of children – like myself – who just attended camp there not through any of these programs but because of they loved the summer camp. The place is also more than just a summer camp – it runs year round programs for families on the weekends and environmental education for school groups during the week. It has also played a major role in preserving land in the Catskills.
After providing so much for so many for so long, today Frost Valley needs help. It was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Irene. Thankfully no kids were there at the time and the staff are all safe. But there was tremendous physical damage done to the camp, including the destruction of one of the camp’s lodges (see photo above). If anyone is interested in contributing to the “relief fund”:https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?supId=0&ievent=994279&lis=1&kntae994279=EC405E824148443CA6A935C46ADB9FEA that Frost Valley has established, I would be most appreciative. You can do so by “clicking here”:https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?supId=0&ievent=994279&lis=1&kntae994279=EC405E824148443CA6A935C46ADB9FEA.
Thanks ahead of time.