KATERI CAMPERS STEP INTO THE SPOTLIGHT
Underprivileged children celebrate summer with performance
Published in the Asbury Park Press
8/15/2002 By Jonathan Rifkin, Staff Writer

A dozen campers from the Kateri Day Camp, a program of Collier Services in Marlboro, had been practicing for three weeks in preparation for a 10-minute step show they performed during a barbecue held at the camp last week.

Considering the long preparation and brevity of the show, which was filled with fast-paced stomping and clapping combinations, it was not a surprise the students were as eager to give an encore performance as the audience was to see one.

 “These girls love to show off, and this is a perfect opportunity for them to do that,” said Michael Medrano, 24, counselor at the camp who created and helped teach the girls many of the rhythms.  “They also learned discipline and how to work together as a team, and it gives them an incentive to behave.  They all want to be a part of the practices and the team.”

 Jackie St. Angel, public information officer for Collier, said all but a handful of the 250 children who attend the Kateri Camp are underprivileged and have their tuition paid for or subsidized by donations.  She said through the generosity of 225 corporations, businesses and individual donors $119,000 was raised for campers this year.  Most of the children who attend the 26-year-old camp come from Neptune, Asbury Park and Long Branch.  During the school year, the facility, on Conover Road in the Morganville section of Marlboro, serves as a high school for children with special needs.

Last week’s barbecue, which was catered by Merry Makers of Matawan, was a chance for representatives from some of the camp’s largest donors to break bread and burgers with the campers at the expansive 260-acre Collier campus.

 “What this camp is seeking to do fits in with our funding mission of furthering the community’s economic, educational and cultural standing,” said Abby O’Neill, Vice President of Community Relations for Fleet Bank, the camp’s lead donor.  “The children will typically not have an opportunity to come here unless their tuition is paid for or subsidized.  And watching them, it’s obvious they are learning important skills for life.”

Jalissa Hickman, 13, said coming to camp and being a part of the step show was a fun experience, but also an opportunity to make new friends and perform step moves, a hobby that has quickly grown into a passion for the Farmingdale resident.

 “I practice at home, we practice here.  We just practice, practice, practice until we get better,” Hickman said.  “I like doing it on my own, but I think it’s more fun doing it for other people.  I like the attention.”

Marie Cistrelli, a representative of one of the Princeton Financial Systems, a donor, said her corporation has been involved with the camp since 1998.

“We like the idea of sending children to summer camp,” Cistrelli said.  “While the experience may be ordinary for some, it is extraordinary for these children.”

Sr. Ellen Kelly, Executive Director for Collier Services, said, regardless of social class, “Kids will always be kids.”  Although many of the children are dealing with very serious issues, usually associated with poverty, she said the problems encountered at the camp are typical of when kids interact.  “Mostly you get to watch the kids experience things for the first time,” she said.  “They are all joyful kids who like to explore and learn.”