81 Pct Grows Happy Campers [VIDEO]

The 81st Police Precinct Community Council in Bedford-Stuyvesant held its end-of-the-summer camp recital last Friday, featuring poetry, dancing, and singing by its young members for their parents and council members.

Every summer for the past 20 years, the community council works tirelessly throughout the year to raise money to run the 81st Pct. Summer Camp. The camp provides the young residents of Bed-Stuy a safe place to go every day to have fun, participate in cultural activities and also learn the virtues of becoming productive citizens.

Every summer four police officers dedicate their entire summers, eight hours a day to work as counselors for the camp. The community council also works closely with the summer youth employment program to recruit teen counselors for the camp who help the elder counselors while also serve as examples to the younger campers.

The young campers take field trips to aquariums, zoos, libraries and other learning institutions. They also take lessons in sporting activities they might otherwise not be exposed to, such as golfing and tennis.

At the recital rehearsal last Friday, children mingled about playfully, some singing, some playing hand-clapping games, others playing the piano or rehearsing their self-choreographed dance moves, and all of them stopping occasionally to give hugs to the police officers and the teen counselors, with whom they had clearly formed a strong bond.

This week marks the final week of the program. Beginning in September, the police precinct community council will start all over again, fundraising for the next year’s summer camp.