Nature Exploration: Inner City Kids Come for a Visit to NH

More than 40 children from New York City arrived in New Hampshire on Wednesday afternoon some for a week, some for two weeks, as part of a more than 130-year-old program that brings inner-city children to experience nature.

The  Fresh Air Fund, founded in 1877, is a nonprofit program that has welcomed more than 1.7 million children to 13 states and Canada over the years, giving them a chance to experience summer the way children who live in more rural communities.

Children stay with host families for either one week or two and do any number of activities from going to the ocean or a lake to visiting attractions like Storyland or Santa's Village.

Karen Elwood, the chairwoman of local volunteer coordinators for the Fresh Air Fund, said they have relationships with various parks and attractions that invite Fresh Air kids to visit for free to help defray the cost for their host families.

Elwood, of Nashua, has been a part of the Fresh Air Fund for 28 years, as a host for 18 children in that time. Starting when her daughter Megan was 6, they've hosted young girls each year. Megan, 24, said it's always been so much fun having children visit for a couple weeks. 

"I just love it," Karen Elwood said. " I love having a house full of kids."

Host families, she said, welcome children between the ages of 6 and 12 to stay with them, however, if they make a connection with a child, and they return for repeat visits with the same family, he or she may remain in the program until they are 18 years old.

On Wednesday, 44 children were making their way to New Hampshire and Vermont. About 20 got off the bus at Nashua South High School. For many, their first taste of the Granite State was a humid torrential downpour that has been common over the last several weeks. 

Most of the children were first-time visitors, and many of the families were first-time hosts. Following the drop off in Nashua, the bus was bound for Peterborough, Keene and Vermont before heading back to New York. A separate bus with about 30 children on it was bound for Rochester on Wednesday, too.

Elwood said the program started a couple weeks ago, and the last bus heads out of Concord on Aug. 9.

In addition to family-planned activities, the Fresh Air Fund also plans group outings throughout the summer that families are welcome to attend, though they aren't required to.

Elwood said the girls they have been hosting for the past few years love to do things like go swimming and the 7-year-old really wants to give mini-golf a try this year.

"She's never been mini-golfing, but she has got it in her head that that's something she wants to do this year," Elwood said. "They come up with some really funny things."

To learn more about the Fresh Air Fund and how you can become a host family, visit www.freshair.org or www.facebook.com/freshairfund.