From gymnastics to science, there are camps for everything. But for the first time in Alaska, there’s one for kids who have a parent serving time in prison.
Keys to Life, a nonprofit which works to promote arts, culture and diversity, offered the summer program.
The camp was at Mirror Lake near Chugiak last week, with five days of fun for about 30 kids.
At Sun Rise Camp, every day was a new day for the children, who had a chance to make new friends and immerse themselves in the arts.
The music sessions were a big hit with the kids. In one of them, children composed songs.
The youngest group of kids called their song, “Early Bird.”
Lei’ana, who is eight, says it’s a story about two birds. “A night owl and early bird talking to each other,” she said. “They want their own routines.”
Mary Schallert, a longtime Anchorage music teacher and songwriter, helped the children put their words to music.
“They seem to me like great, wonderful kids,” Schallert said. “You know, there was nothing that stood out, like this kid is that, and this kid is that. Basically, we were living in the moment.”
Shirley Mae Springer Staten, who organized the camp, says it’s not immediately apparent, but these children have shouldered a lot for their age. She hopes the camp will help to lift some of the burdens by giving them an opportunity to take off their armor and embrace new experiences.
There is a stigma to it, she says, but here they can just be kids and not be identified as kids of incarcerated parents.
Springer Staten says the kids spend a lot of energy keeping that part of their life private. But the camp gave them a safe place to share their stories. Last week, counselors had a chance to sit down with kids who needed to talk.
“It’s been an intense week,” Springer Staten said. “We had lots of tears. We had stories about uncles being shot, committing suicide.”
“We had a real intense conversation around bullying,” Springer Staten said. The subject came up during skits the children performed.
“Some of the kids at school know that their parents are incarcerated. And they’re feeling that stress and bullying around that, and here they didn’t have to deal with it,” Springer Staten said.
Ruben, an eighth grader, said it was a relief to know that he is not alone.
“It was really cool to come and meet some more people that I can relate to,” said Ruben, who made friends with a sixth grader named Logan.
Both Ruben and Logan say most kids have no idea how tough it is to have a parent in prison.
“It’s kind of hard on my mom, just being alone with me,” Ruben said.
It doesn’t help when kids are mean, Logan said. He’s always wondered why kids, who are fortunate to have a happy and stable family life, have a hard time understanding his situation.
“They think they’re having a good life, and they think everybody has one,” Logan said, “but not everybody has a good life.”
“Some kids ball it up. Some kids need help,” he said.
Research shows that children of incarcerated parents are hidden victims in our criminal justice system. They suffer higher rates of emotional or behavioral problems, do poorly in school, and are also at risk of cycling through the prison system themselves.
One child at the Sun Rise camp comes from a family with three generations of women who have all been incarcerated. Another boy, now in foster care, said his father forgot to feed his family after his mother died — just a few of the heart-breaking stories children at this camp hold inside.
But at Sun Rise Camp, every day is a new day, filled with art, music and storytelling and, best of all, new friends, who enjoyed each other’s company late into the night.
“We couldn’t sleep, so we laughed, giggled and all that,” said Kaelyn, who said it was hard to get up early.
In the songs the children composed, the need for sleep was a common theme.
In the younger group’s piece, “Early Bird,” the children identify with the night owl, and somewhere in the middle of the chorus there’s a werewolf that bites, almost like a strange dream.
The older group wrote a song called, “From My Cabin to Neptune,” which also had a dreamlike quality.
There’s a line in the chorus that says, “I wanna go in my cabin and sleep, where the moon and the Neptune is where I find peace.”
Iris Montesano, a college student, who co-taught the songwriting sessions, says that’s OK.
“Having a way to channel that emotion, or frustration or happiness, into something you can share, or maybe something you just perform for yourself, is super-duper valuable,” Montesano said.
The songs, if anything, reflect the spirit of the Sun Rise Camp, where every day is a new day.