Making happy campers
Donations help low-income families send children to summer camp
Cradle Beach is no stranger to the concept of sibling rivalry, at least not with the Rumph children around.
Kenneth Rumph, 12, and his sister Tamare Hover-Rumph, 10, sat down at dinner Friday night, poking each other in the side and throwing hands in front of the other’s face. If Tamare wants to get Kenneth’s attention, that’s all it takes.
“Sometimes we fight. Usually it’s just so much back and forth joking with each other. I usually can’t help but smile when we do that,” Kenneth said. “I don’t like it when she slaps me in the face. So I’ll usually be with my friends and she’ll be with hers. But it’s good to see her around.”
Kenneth and Tamare could not afford to attend camp without Cradle Beach’s low-income student donation program. This allows low-income families to send their children to the camp for an average of $100 for a 10-day session. The donations are collected annually.
Bonnie A. Brusk, director of youth services, said providing opportunities to families in economic hardships has always been a part of the camp’s mission. The Rumphs are in their fourth summer at Cradle Beach, and it’s because of these donations.
“We have parents who say their kids are packed for weeks ahead of time. They are excited to get here,” Brusk said. “We have first-timers that cry when they get here because they are homesick. Then those same kids cry when they leave because they don’t want to — they like it too much.”
Each child is assigned to a cabin, and every day campers rotate through different play stations where they can do anything from playing tennis to riding horses to computer lessons. But word around camp is, the best place to be at camp is the pool.
That’s what the Rumph children look forward to daily. Kenneth likes the pool because he can dive into the deep end, where he does handstands and bursts out of the water, splashing everyone around him.
Tamare stays in the shallow end, but she doesn’t mind. She plays with a “cute boy.”
“His name is Daybrien, but everyone just calls him Day-Day,” Tamare said coyly with an unbreakable smile. “We were swimming to each other. And almost nobody can make him laugh, he’s so serious, but I did it. I made him laugh. We splashed each other and I let him win. I screamed, ‘I quit. I quit’ all loud and squeaky. I like him a lot.”
When she tried to measure how much she liked him, she first held up her hand and spread her pointer finger and thumb, saying just a little, but when asked again, she threw her arms as wide as she could.
Kenneth said she doesn’t just like him — she loves him.
“Love, love,” he said of his sister’s summer romance. “I see them in the pool together. It’s love.”
Tamare shoved Kenneth’s arm, upset he would tell anyone that.
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” she said. “I can’t believe you right now.”
Kenneth said he sees his sister throughout the day, across the camp at different play stations and at meal time. For these two, love isn’t only left in waves at the pool.
“I keep an eye out for her,” he said. “When it comes down to it, she is my sister, and I love her.”
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