A group of students read during reading hour: Photo by Desiree Espada
“Who wants to do the spinning song?” Sherry Young asks a classroom full of children. A dozen hands shoot up, followed by a chorus of, “Me, me!” Young hits the play button on the CD player and together they’re off — singing, clapping and dancing.
The Rev. Stephen Setzer: Photo by Desiree Espada
Young is the music teacher at Bishop’s Camp, a summer day camp hosted by St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in East Dallas. From mid-June to early August, Bishop’s Camp offers five key subjects — music, art, math, P.E. and reading — to neighborhood elementary and middle school students during the week, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Founded in 1994, the camp is celebrating its 20th birthday this year.
“It targets the low-income families that live in the area,” says Bishop’s Camp director Lourdes Mendez. “We serve about 130 kids, more or less, every year.”
While students in Young’s classroom sing and dance, more students gather in rooms throughout St. Matthew’s campus, immersed in other tasks.
In a sunny room upstairs, dozens of students huddle around a table, their eyes scanning slips of paper, eager to be the first one to 50 in Math Bingo. Next door, another group of kids clumps loosely around folding tables, getting lost in the pages of paperback books.
Downstairs, kids run and shout in a wild game of dodgeball next door to a group of still more students, who are absorbed in creating colorful, DIY piñatas out of milk cartons.
The students are happy to reveal their favorite part of the camp.
“I really like reading because it’s our time to unwind,” sixth-grader Osiel Chavez says.
For others, it’s dodgeball, water day or field trips to the zoo. Even the more daunting subjects, such as math, science or reading, managed to make it to the top of some kids’ lists.
The main goal of Bishop’s Camp is to help students stay up to speed academically over summer break.
“Over the summer kids lose, on average, two months of reading skills,” says Steve Sale, a board member for Bishop’s Camp. “This program not only helps save that loss, but also helps to progress the children, possibly even beyond those two months. Particularly in this community, that loss is a significant loss, and DISD is really driving to ensure that we maintain equivalency. This program is a tremendous contribution.”
Kids choose books in the library at Bishop’s Camp. Photo by Desiree Espada
The Rev. Diana Luck led Bishop’s Camp for several years after it began 20 years ago. She recalls how Bishop James Stanton, who retired last May, created the program.
“He was sitting in his office, and he saw a little girl walking through the parking lot, and he thought, ‘There’s got to be something better for children to do during the summertime,’ ” Luck explains. “So he approached the cathedral about starting a reading program.”
It began as a reading program with a handful of kids. At the time, it relied on churches and organizations to donate books and provide peanut butter sandwiches.
“Over time more and more kids started coming, and we began to add more things for them to do,” she says. “But reading is still the heart of the program. Some of the children will read 30 or 40 books over the course of the summer, which is a wonderful thing.”
Eventually St. Matthew’s hired a director for the program and began raising funds so they could continue to host the camp at no cost to the students. In 2001 Bishop’s Camp began hosting an annual golf tournament, which still supports the program. As more subjects were added, they began to hire teachers.
Litzy Chaves, who attends Bishop’s Camp during the summer with two of her siblings, says she is relieved the program gives her younger brother, Mark, something constructive to do during the summer.
“If Mark wasn’t here, he would just be watching TV,” she says.
Most of the students come from neighborhood DISD schools or programs, says The Rev. Stephen Setzer. Schools include Uplift Peak Preparatory, John. F. Kennedy Learning Center, Exodus Ministries, A. W. Spence Talented and Gifted Academy, Cesar Chavez Learning Center, North Dallas High and Uplift Luna Preparatory.
The program serves kids from ages 6 to 14, and high school students can become counselors.
Giovanni Martinez has been attending the camp since he was 10, so it was important to him to serve as a counselor when he became a freshman this year “because I looked up to the counselors,” he says. “So I wanted to be like them.”
Bishop’s Camp serves its students lunch every day through a partnership with DISD’s Summer Meals for Kids program, which aims to ensure that low-income children continue to receive nutritious meals during the summer when they no longer have access to school breakfasts and lunches. Setzer says many of the kids also are in the Texas SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program).
The Bishop’s Camp Golf Tournament is Sept. 29 at Thorntree Country Club in DeSoto. The event includes a box lunch, raffle tickets and a round of golf, followed by a dinner and prize ceremony. Neighbors can play for $150 per golfer. Sponsorships, which range from $200-$3,000, also are available.
Learn more at bishopscamp.org.
