Starting in 2020, the DeWitt Area Recreation Authority (DARA) is offering scholarship funds for families in need of financial help with sending their kids to its growing summer camp program.
DARA Executive Director Chad Stevens announced at the Sept. 23 DeWitt City Council meeting that a scholarship fund worth $5,000 will go towards abating the growing demand for financial assistance.
“What we’re trying to accomplish is to get kids that may not be able to do more than one week of camp or maybe none at all,” Stevens said. “There’s a segment in DeWitt township where not everybody has the same advantages as everybody else, and we’re trying to bridge that gap and give them a little bit of equity to be able to have a positive experience for their kids over the course of the summer.
“So if we can get them to camp two weeks a year, as opposed to one or none, that’s a small step in the right direction.”
Stevens’ plan is to provide a 50% provision to families accepting the scholarship, which means a $125 week of camp would only cost the family $63. Stevens said he is willing to be flexible with that rule.
“You want to recreate for everybody,” Stevens said. “Not just everybody that can afford it. We’re a government service, so we want everybody to be able to take advantage of what we have to offer.”
DeWitt Mayor Sue Leeming said although the city of DeWitt is, based on demographics, “a pretty affluent community,” that does not mean that DeWitt does not have needy families who can benefit from the fund.
“We do,” Leeming said. “And so does the township have probably even more families in that situation. And so whatever we can do to help those families–especially those kids there this summer—at least a week or two is a wonderful thing.”
Most of the kids who attend DARA’s summer camp come from within a 20-mile radius of DeWitt, Stevens said. From Lansing to as far north as St. Johns, the camp offers a variety of indoor and outdoor activities with each new weekly theme for kids who need somewhere to go during the summer months.
“We’re convenient for people north of us that work in like the city of Lansing,” Stevens said. “So that they can get to our community center really easy on the way to work, drop their kids off and then pick them up from camp at the end of the workday. So mostly in the Clinton County area, and then a little bit of the city of Lansing as well.”
Since it began in 2006 as a six-week program serving an average of 30 kids per week, Stevens said it has grown into an 11-week program with an average of 101 kids attending every week of 2019’s program.
Tom Shanley’s three kids have all been involved in DARA’s summer camp for years, whether that be attending the summer camp like youngest daughter Kaitlyn or working as a counselor as his son, Christopher did, and his oldest daughter Allison is training to do.
“It seems like every summer you see the same kids going there,” Shanley said. “Kids develop friends that they don’t maybe see other times of the year, and they’re excited to get back and have all the fun activities that DARA provides. It’s a good, safe environment to keep my kids occupied during the summer.”
The scholarship fund is a sign of the summer camp’s growth, and Shanley said it is a necessary provision for any community.
“Unless you’re over in someplace out in California,” Shanley said. “Where all you have is millionaires all over the place. … All communities have a need for scholarships. DeWitt is no exception. There’s people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford something like that, so it’s very important to have scholarships. It’ll help these kids to come along and have the same opportunities as everybody else.”
Stevens said the leftover money going towards the scholarship fund is owed in large part to the increase in the amount of attending kids. But the devotion Stevens and the rest of DARA’s staff has shown towards advancing the program has not gone unnoticed.
“Chad’s really good,” Leeming said. “… He’s come up through the ranks in the program, so he’s seen what goes on. And he’s really working with the heart of the community in mind. He really wants to make it an excellent program, and he has.”