HAPPY CAMPERS
Camp Courant begins 125th year as a free summer event for Hartford youths
HARTFORD – When the doors of 14 buses opened at Farmington’s Batterson Park, hundreds of children streamed into the sunlight and filled the air with the sounds of summer camp.
Children screamed in unison with friends they hadn’t seen since last year, while announcements crackled over the intercom and chaperones wrangled stray campers toward the playground or the breakfast line.
The Monday morning bustle marked the beginning of Camp Courant’s 125th season.
Camp Courant, a six-week day camp, is the largest free summer camp in the nation. It provides Hartford children with educational programs, free meals and a safe place to play during the summer months.
On Monday, some of the campers looked lost and nervous, holding older siblings’ hands or silently eyeing the unfamiliar staff. But Director Stan Glowiak said by the end of the season, those campers will hug their favorite counselors and count the days until next summer.
“We want good experiences here that they’re gonna remember for the rest of their lives,” Glowiak said. “This is like an oasis for the kids.”
Achance to ‘see the world differently’
Camp Courant traces its roots to 1894, when employees of the Hartford Courant began loosely organizing summer programming for children and families.
The early programming was mostly steamboat excursions and trolley rides. By 1916, however, the camp settled in a permanent location in Farmington and picked up the name “Camp Courant.”
This year, the day camp is hosting 750 campers, all Hartford children between five and 12 years old. About 93 percent of the campers qualify for federal free and reduced price meals, according to Camp Courant Executive Director and CEO McKinley Albert.
As part of the free camp, the campers receive transportation from Hartford to Farmington, as well as breakfast and lunch.
In between meals, the campers participate in swimming, sports, arts and crafts and their choice of more than a dozen other programs.
In the past two years, Albert said, Camp Courant has added programs for manufacturing, performance, girls’ empowerment and more.
Andrew Julien, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Hartford Courant Media Group and also a member of Camp Courant’s Board of Directors, said the donor-supported camp has survived for more than a century because the community believes in its mission.
“It’s incredibly important and powerful when you have a space that is welcoming and inviting and fun, for kids to have the ability to see the world differently and to see everything the world can offer them,” Julien said.
Along waitlist
Many of the campers wouldn’t have any summer activities without Camp Courant, Albert said.
“Overwhelmingly, parents tell us that if it wasn’t for Camp Courant, their kids would not have a place to go in the summer,” Albert said. “They said their kids would either be sitting at home or staying inside with a relative.”
The camp’s extensive wait list, which Albert said has hundreds of names each year, makes the need apparent. Without the camp, Albert said that many of the campers would be sitting at home, some of them without food.
There are other summer programs that can provide food and entertainment to Hartford youth, but Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said that Camp Courant offers a more complete setting.
“While we have rec programs and summer lunch programs in the city, Camp Courant provides a full day camp experience for kids who wouldn’t otherwise have anything like it,” Bronin said.
Camp Courant’s programming, which mixes classic summer fun with more structured programs, keeps the kids’ minds active so that they’re more prepared to return to school in the fall.
“The outdoor recreation is hugely important, but so is the reading and the STEM curriculum that helps avoid summer learning loss or the summer slide,” Bronin said.
By filling a void in programming during the summer, Camp Courant has rooted itself in the memories of generations of Hartford families.
Generations of campers
Unit Director Tevin James, who is in his 11th season at the camp, said many of the campers’ parents will tell him about their own time at Camp Courant.
“It’s cool to know that you’re building those memories with these kids now,” James said.
While the camp’s Playground Director, Jahmal Gibson, builds memories with current campers, he can draw parallels to his own childhood summers.
Gibson first came to Camp Courant as a seven- or eightyear-old camper. Gibson has spent each of the 15 following summers at the camp — first as a camper, a junior leader and a counselor and now as a program director.
Gibson said that Camp Courant taught him selfworth, character and the importance of building relationships. He said the same lessons are now being taught to the campers that he oversees.
“We need kids to realize their self worth at a younger age, with suicide rates going up (and) a lot of negativity out in the world,” Gibson said.
Camp Courant allows the campers to focus on selfexpression and to connect with each other without the influence of social media, Gibson said.
“Those are the things that we just need to focus on as a community and as a world right now,” Gibson said. “To keep Camp Courant going and to keep other camps going, it’s just what we need.”