New Haven Independent

Antrum and Shanice (pictured), who is 14 and enters Career High this fall, joined more than a dozen other grandparents and the kids they’re raising to plan for the new camp, called Grands Camp. It opens next Monday. Meanwhile, organizers are scrambling for last-minute grants and donations to serve as many kids and hire as many teens as possible.

The idea behind Grands Camp: Give grandparents a break, and the children they’re raising a safe, constructive summer. Teens in grandparent-run families will serve as counselors, under adult supervision. 5-12-year-olds from these families will attend as campers. Grandparents will either use the time for a needed break, or volunteer at the camp.

The camp came about quickly, inspired by a May end-of-the-year party for a local support group called Grandparents on the Move. Organizer Carolyn Jackson heard the grandparents discussing the need for summer activity for their children. She rounded up some money from the Community Foundation and another funder, but still needs more. The camp opens July 16 and runs for three weeks. It’ll take place afternoons at Hilllhouse High School, featuring recreation, some “life skills” training (how to control anger, for instance), and a bit of straight-up education. But not too much, since the campers will largely be coming from morning summer school and need to unwind. Mostly it’ll be plain old play and fun.

The teen counselors involved failed to land spots in existing summer-job programs launched by the city in the wake of a spike in youth violence. Amid the rise in shootings, grandparent-caretakers have appealed to the city for support as they take on a tough job they never expected to be reprising late in life.

Carolyn Jackson last week gave both the teens and the grandparents a pep talk at her office on Hamilton Street to prepare them for the camp. She spoke of the recent shooting of a 9-year-old who was hit by a stray bullet while watching TV inside his apartment at West and Truman streets.

When the children arrive each day, Jackson said, greet them by the door, by name.

“You don’t know what their morning was like before they got there,” she said. “You don’t know what their night was like. Coming to this camp may be their only fun time, their only safe time. That boy who got shot the other night — he was in his house. Our children must be feeling nervous. We want them to feel safe. We want them to feel happy.”

Jackson advised them, when disciplining campers, to speak to them privately, quietly, to avoid embarrassing them. “You don’t yell at a child. You don’t get up in their face. You don’t demean them. They’re children.”

Hugs are nice, too, she said — unless you’re male, and the camper is female. Click on the play arrow to watch her explain that point.

Elizabeth Antrum said she looks forward to her granddaughter Shanice learn about budgeting with her $100 weekly stipend as a counselor. She has already had Shanice sign up with a credit union.

“She thinks she’s going to blow through the money. Ain’t gonna happen!” Antrum declared, to murmurs of assent from other grandparents in the room.

Frances Days’s 12-year-old grandson Derrick Bonaparte will be a camper. “They’ll know they can’t lay in the bed all summer,” Days said, to more “un-hunh” murmurs. Days also looks forward to vounteering at the camp.

“I had one son,” Days said. “He was all grown and gone. Then I had to turn around and do it all again. It was hard.” First she raised her granddaughter, Antoinette, who’s on her way to Gateway Community College to study child development. Now she’s raising Derrick — and finding homework a more challenging requirement to enforce.

The deadline for camp registration is Friday. To sign up or donate money, call 946-7443 or 946-7444.