Camp Skychild is an annual summer camp for kids; however, this camp is special not only because it is offered completely for free, but also in terms of the kids who are being served.
Deborah Kottel, a legal studies professor at the University of Providence, said kids need to be able “to just be kids” without the stress of taking care of their parents.
“We’ve been at this for 32 years. We were the first camp in the nation, in the whole united states, that saw children of prisoners as victims of their parents crime, because of the abandonment issue and often the economic deprivation that takes place,” said Kottel.
Camp Skychild is a joint service-learning project between the University of Providence and St. Vincent de Paul of Great Falls. Students and professors from the university volunteer each year to be counselors for the camp.
Chloe Legreid, a university student, said “I think it’s the tiny things that we sometimes take for granted, like a bedtime story or just sitting and like actually helping them cut their stake or helping pass things out, and sitting and eating ice cream and, like, laughing with them. And they just enjoy it so much, and it's things that I think I would forget that actually mean a lot, but to them it means so much.”
According to Kottel, children of inmates are six times more likely to enter the criminal justice system, so one of the main goals of Camp Skychild is to try to break the cycle for these kids.
“If you happen to come from a family where leisure time activity is becoming intoxicated, passing out, etc., how do you choose to go to a Voyagers game as your leisure time activity? How do you choose to go camping or go fishing? So, the idea is to give kids experiences that they may want to duplicate,” said Kottel.
The camp is for children between the ages of 5 and 11 who have a parent in the social welfare or criminal justice system. Many of these kids have a challenging home life, and this camp offers a week of fun sanctuary.
“They just come out here with a smile on their face and, you know, they'll say something and like, for me, it takes me a step back and I’m like ‘wow, like, are you okay?’ but they're totally fine and they're having fun. So, it's just really nice that they have a chance to be somewhere with people that understand what they're going through,” Legreid added.
“Kids should know what it feels like to hike and fish and to be part of a communal activity,” said Kottel.
