Rosemary Ruk, a retired school administrator in Massapequa, and her only child Dakota, a Wheaten Terrier, recently welcomed a Fresh Air Fund youngster into her home.
(Photos by Cynthia Paulis)
“I always wanted to foster a child and years ago I wanted to adopt since I had no children of my own,” said Ruk, who took in 11-year-old Danesha Watts of the Bronx. “When I heard about this program of sponsoring a child for a week, I thought it would be a good introduction to let me know if I wanted to foster children or not and to see how it would go.”
Each year the Fresh Air Fund of New York sends children from low income families living in the five boroughs to camp so that they can experience the outdoors. But the organization also has a program where host families invite the children to their homes for a week.
Today the organization serves as a way for children ages six to 18 to experience a week in the country, or in this case Long Island. This summer two buses of children came to live with host families in Nassau and Suffolk.
Watts, who shares a room with her 17-year-old brother and 16-year-old sister was thrilled to have her own room in Ruk’s condominium complete with a heated pool.
“It’s really pretty here with big houses and lots of grass,” said Watts. “I like having a lawn. Rosemary is really nice and she lets me do a lot and we have a lot of fun. I love going to the pool and doing things I can’t really do in the Bronx. Dakota is really fun and cute and I like playing with him.”
Her parents work all day, dad is an EMT and mom works in a dance studio, so Watts stays in the apartment all day. This program, which she has participated in three times, allows her the opportunity to experience new things and have fun. She went to Tobay Beach twice, had a chance to cook lasanga. There were trips to the library, shopping days and going to outdoor concerts at town parks.
There were also group play dates at Adventureland In Farmingdale, bowling in Syosset and a day of ice skating. The Fresh Air Fund not only impacts the sponsored child, but has a positive effect on the hosting families as well. Teenagers Connor Lynn of Lloyd Harbor and Isabella Molinari of Laurel Hollow demonstrated that by their extraordinary fundraising for the Fresh Air Fund.
The Lynn family had been hosting Fresh Air Fund children for 10 years.
“I learned to be very thankful for what I have, some of the things I take for granted these children have never had,” said Lynn, who introduced his long time friend Isabella in the program.
The pair decided they wanted to raise $2,500 to send five children to one of the Fresh Air Fund Camps upstate. It costs $500 to sponsor a child for a week. They had an evening inviting neighbors, and three organizations to come to their home and a portion of the merchandise sold would be used for the Fresh Air fund.
“Thirty minutes into our fund raiser we passed $,2500,” said Lynn. “We were so thrilled because there were so many possibilities once we raised so much money.”
The industrious duo raised $11,000 in two hours, enough to send 10 children to the camps, as well as a night at Adventureland and some money left over.
“School is very important to me and I thought it would be a great idea for the kids to start off the school year organized and with the proper supplies they need to have a successful year,” said Lynn. “I thought if they had all the supplies in a back pack then maybe they would be more interested and do very well in school.”
Lynn contacted LL Bean and told them what they wanted to do. When the company heard what these teens were doing they gave him a huge discount on the 50 backpacks and monogrammed each child’s name for free. Then they went to Staples and the company also gave them a big discount. Each back pack was filled with 17 items needed for school by both Lynn and Molinari.
“I felt it was important that they went into the year with all of the supplies they need in order to succeed and I hoped that they would do so,” said Lynn. “I wanted to give them something that was unique so I thought having their names on them would be really special. When they got them, so many of them were so amazed, they had never seen any of that before. I was so happy to see them so excited. The kids ran up and hugged me. Some of the kids told me they never even had a back pack before. Once I heard that I was so thrilled that I able to give them that and I was glad I was able to help them out.”
Sporting a hot pink backpack with her name, Watts hugged Ruk and boarded her bus back home.
Fresh Air Fund executive director, and a host for 13 years, Eileen Rauchenberger of Syosset explained the vetting process. Each host family requires four references and a formal background check on the family will take place along with a site visit before the child is matched. Each child is medically cleared before coming to the host family.
“Two out of three children that are invited by a family are invited back year after year,” said Rauchenberger. ” You can change a child’s life in a week, but not only can you change their life you can change your own.”
