CENTENNIAL SPLASH
Camp Moorelands marks 100 years of serving disadvantaged youth,
The price tag attached to summer camp made it restrictive to Wendy Mackenzie’s family when she was growing up in subsidized housing in the Jane and Finch area.
“We weren’t going anywhere,” the 52-year-old said.
When a social worker suggested that Mackenzie should attend Camp Moorelands, she leapt at the opportunity, first attending during the summer of 1976.
“The camp was able to offer what was, at the time, as significant subsidy,” said Mackenzie, a Moorelands alumni and Burlington-based social worker. “That was it: camp was my life.”
Moorelands Community Service serves disadvantaged children and youth from Toronto. Since 1917 the charity, which is supported by the Toronto Star’s Fresh Air Fund, has sent 129,500 kids to the camp, said Maureen Lewis, director of development and communications, referring to a statistic gleaned in time for Camp Moorelands’ 100th anniversary on Saturday.
The camp is near Dorset, Ont., and everyone must be ferried across Kawagama Lake to reach it. It’s geared to income in order to make it as accessible as possible to people grappling with poverty.
“About 74 per cent of our families pay $25 to $35 and the rest is done by donations from people who love and believe in camping for kids,” Lewis said.
The Fresh Air Fund, an initiative established to help children attend overnight and day camps every summer, has had a partnership with Moorelands since the camp’s inception, Lewis said.
Donations enable 600 children and youth between ages 8 and 16 to attend the camp each summer.
Swim lessons are mandatory and kids get to choose from a variety of activities, including orienteering, canoeing and archery. Learning these is one thing: leadership and life skills development are equally important, if not more, Lewis said.
“If you’re out there and learning how to canoe, for example, well, you’re not only learning how to make the perfect J-stroke, but you’re learning how to work together,” she said.
Mackenzie’s experience at camp was a long way from the daily realities many children face who hail from underserved Toronto communities, she said.
Strong friendships were cultivated at camp, along with an unwavering support system, she said.
“The person that was hiding would come out, and you were told: ‘You can do that, it’s OK, you’re not judged for anything here.’ ”
Mackenzie recalls working as a camp counsellor and observing the marked changes taking place in kids at Moorelands, changes she once recognized in herself.
“At one point we had two weeks to watch the changes in these kids go from nothing to not ever wanting to leave camp,” she said. “You’d see how strong they’d get, how independent they’d get.”
An alumni reunion coincides with the camp’s 100th birthday.
“I cannot wait to get up there on the weekend,” Mackenzie said, emotional over the phone. “It has that impact. You can’t get that image out of your head.”