Hero Parkland Teacher's Mom Funds, Visits HV Camp For City Kids

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Scott Beigel loved summer camp. In fact, his mom believes he went into teaching so he could go back to camp. He also was deeply invested in helping kids without resources, and spent months in South Africa volunteering with children.

“That just put such a grip on his heart,” said Linda Beigel-Schulman.

So after Beigel was slain while rescuing students at Marjory Stone Douglas High School in 2018, his family started the Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund.

"We decided to transfer pieces of that heart to campers we could serve," she told Patch. "My mission was to send disadvantaged, underprivileged children to summer camp — maybe children touched by gun violence in some way. I wanted to get the children away from the city, away from guns, gangs, violence."

She and her husband Michael Schulman caught the very first bus pick-up on Long Island Sunday as 60 kids headed to the Hudson Valley.

Then on Wednesday they drove to Patterson, New York to see what the fund had made possible.

The fund honors the former Dix Hills native who was one of 17 people killed in the Parkland school shooting in 2018. He was a geography teacher and the school's cross country coach. Beigel had unlocked his classroom briefly to let more students take shelter. As he closed the door, the shooter, by then only five feet away, killed him and moved past. "He saved 31 lives," his mother said.

After setting up the fund, the family began working with the national organization SCOPE (Summer Camp Opportunities Promote Education). "I was given a list of many camps,” she said. On it was a venerable program in Patterson, New York.

Camp Herrlich has given underprivileged city children a chance to experience nature since the 1920s. It's not all it does — its programs now serve more than 6,000 people of all ages, year-round.

"Camp Herrlich just stood out," she said. "We went up before COVID and fell in love with everything about it — the kids, the staff, what it stands for — it’s a wonderful place."

Its summer sleepaway camp program offers the full adventure from arts and crafts to swimming for kids from the city. "They’ve never been in a lake, on a horse, grown their own vegetables," Beigel-Schulman said.

"When we saw them leaving for camp I was brought to tears," she said. She particularly cherished her conversations with the adults there waving goodbye, "saying to them you can sleep so much better tonight, knowing these 60 children are being taken care of and are safe."

The couple loved what they saw on their trip to Patterson Wednesday.

"The difference between their faces yesterday from when they got on the bus was incredible," Schulman said. "All smiles and laughter — it was contagious."

This year the fund is sending 165 children to six camps across the country including Camp Herrlich.

“We hope to send the same children back year after year until they can become counselors in training and literally pay it forward," Beigel-Schulman said.

That goes for the fund as well, she said. "The more people that know, the more people will pay it forward and we’ll be able to send more kids."

Contribute to the Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund here.

SEE ALSO:

• Hero Teacher Who Shielded Students In Fla. Shooting Grew Up On LI
• Memorial Fund Set Up To Honor Scott J. Beigel

Patch staffer Paige McAtee contributed to this report.