Harbor Camp Offers Refreshing Break, By Brian R. Ballou
City youths thrive with support staff
By Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | August 20, 2010
Shaquil Wilkie thought going to Camp Harbor View for a month three years ago was a bad idea, that it would take time away from hanging out on the streets. But he went anyway, at the behest of his grandmother, bringing along his red bandana as a silent symbol of defiance and allegiance to his gang.
The first week was tough, he said, as he did not get along with the other campers and often argued. Then a counselor who noticed the bandana told him that nothing positive comes from gangs. Wilkie then met with Cara Gould, the camp’s director.
“She told me to do this only if I want to,’’ Wilkie recalled yesterday at the camp, located on Long Island, in Boston Harbor. She told me that if I got something from the talk with the counselor, to turn my [gang] flag in.’’
On the day after that talk with Gould, Wilkie handed her his bandana, after writing on it, “I’m no longer in a gang.’’ The cloth hangs on a wall in Gould’s office. Wilkie is now a counselor in training.
“It makes me feel good to work with the kids; I’m teaching them, just like I was taught,’’ said Wilkie, a senior at Brockton High School who lives with his grandmother during the summer.
Camp Harbor View is a place where children from crime-plagued communities or troubled homes come to have fun and along the way receive guidance from people like Wilkie or the other 38 counselors. Today is the last day of the second summer session, but because of high demand, about 100 youths whose names were put on a waiting list earlier this year will be invited to an abbreviated, weeklong camp that begins Monday.
The camp has grown in attendance every year since 2007, when it first opened. This summer, about 380 youths, ages 11 to 14, attended each session.
Yesterday, Red Sox players Kevin Cash and Michael Bowden visited and answered questions. One boy asked Bowden whether it was hard being a pitcher, to which Bowden answered, “At this level, any position is hard.’’
Mayor Thomas M. Menino also paid a visit. In the winter of 2007, he and Boston businessman Jack Connors discussed the growing problem of violence among teens, particularly in the summer. Connors mentioned his visits to Long Island as a child.
From their conversation, the former military base, which sat unused for years, was transformed. The Boys & Girls Club runs the camp in conjunction with the city. Its operating costs run about $2.5 million to $3 million, money generated through private funding. Admission to the camp is $5 per session.
“It’s fun,’’ Robert Silva, 12, a seventh-grader at McCormick Middle School, said yesterday. “I would be at home playing video games, probably bored if I wasn’t here. My parents think it’s good because you don’t have to pay a lot.’’
On the perfect summer day, dozens of youths in burnt-orange T-shirts and shorts played lacrosse and soccer on a neatly trimmed field. Swimming and basketball are the most popular activities, Gould said, but boating and climbing are “surprise favorites.’’ The camp offers five areas of activities or exercises, including aquatics, arts, and leadership development.
Menino said the camp is designed for boys and girls “too old to be young and too young to be old.’’
“Sometimes I see these kids later in the day in the city, walking around with their camp T-shirts on,’’ he said. “They say to me they like the camp, but are too tired to do anything else but go to sleep when they get home. That’s the objective.’’
Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com. 
