|
|
Urban children see summer stars
August 5, 1996
Web posted at: 4:20 p.m. EDT
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Ten-year-old Monique Taylor likes swimming and having her own room, but says she likes the quiet of her summer vacation the best.
The other 50 weeks a year, Monique hears fighting, downstairs in the Bronx apartment building where she lives with her grandmother and five others, or perhaps in the streets, where her grandmother will not let her venture alone.
Monique's annual two-week reprieve comes courtesy of the
Fresh Air Fund, a not-for-profit agency that gets New York
City's disadvantaged, concrete-bound children into the
country. Some 10,000 children each summer go for free to
camps the agency runs in New York, or to the homes of
volunteer hosts in 13 states and Canada. (64K AIFF or WAV sound)
Sara Deleo, who has opened her suburban doors to Monique, knows first-hand about the contrast in the child's life. Deleo said she was reared by her mother in a tough New York neighborhood, and spent two weeks each summer upstate, as a Fresh Air Fund child.
Deleo wanted to give what she had received-- a view of the world beyond the skyscrapers.
"At night, you would look up and you would see stars," Deleo said. "You don't see stars in Manhattan."
Related site:
|
Tell us what you think! You said it... |
|
|
© 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.