Mid-Hudson Valley Camp in Esopus, NY
Each summer, student volunteers work as volunteer counselors at a variety of one-week summer camps for handicapped children. Hosted by the Marist Retreat Center in Esopus, New York, ninety miles north of the city, the camp provides a fun-filled week for kids afflicted with cancer, Downs syndrome, deafness, HIV, and other disabilities.
At these camps, everyone benefits. The campers experience a week in the country that would otherwise be impossible. Their families receive a well-earned week's respite from the demands of caring for a handicapped child. And the counselors learn the great personal rewards of giving the gift of themselves to others. Some of the counselors still return to work as summer volunteers twenty years later, bring along their own families and arranging summer vacation plans around the camp schedule.
The Marist Brothers Retreat House stretches over 120 acres of Hudson Valley landscape: pine knolls, shale outcroppings, tended lawns, and wooded paths winding down to the banks of the Hudson. As rich in history as aesthetic beauty, the property is part of the original grand Hudson River estates of John Jacob Astor and Oliver Hazard Payne. Many of the estate's original buildings still exist today, maintained and refurbished over the century.
- Esopus Camps - Visit the Mid-Hudson Valley Camp's web site.
- Marist Retreat House - Explore the Marist Brothers' Retreat House online.