All Aboard To Camp Farnam

Five-year-old Kency used binoculars for the first time and spotted an (inflatable) bald eagle, while fourth graders Nathan and Gabriel played one-on-one basketball — all at a 72-acre outdoor camp site a half hour away from their daily summer camp’s New Haven home.

That was the scene as over 100 summer campers from Fair Haven School took their second trip this month on Tuesday morning to Camp Farnam in Durham. 

After a 30-minute bus ride to the Clifford Beers-run camp site, students and their summer educators separated into small groups to experience as much of the site as possible. 

Students arrived on five buses Tuesday with backpacks full of bathing suits, towels, and extra clothes. 

Under a pavilion some groups kickstarted their morning with arts and crafts by making bird houses and personalizing caps and t‑shirts. Others got their faces painted or danced to tunes that rumbled throughout the surrounding trees. 

Around 10:40 a.m., kindergarteners and first graders wandered over to a smaller pavilion where members of the New Haven Bird Club taught them how to watch and identify birds in nature. 

The five-year-olds shared two sets of binoculars to spot the small creatures that they could hear but not always see. In the distance the kids spotted cut-outs of blue jays and cardinals through the binoculars. 

“I see it! A blue bird!” Kency called out with binoculars in hand. 

Then she went to flip over dozens of rocks in search of ants to capture for the birds to have a tasty snack. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the camp, rising fourth graders and best friends Gabriel and Nathan played on the basketball court in an attempt to calm their excitement before heading to the pool later in the day. 

The duo have played basketball together since they met in the first grade. They’ve also been attending summer camp at Fair Haven School throughout July, which they said was fun and ​“taught us how to be smart.” 

For both of their first times at Camp Farnam Tuesday, Nathan said he looked forward to exploring a new place with his best fiend. ​“There’s so much to explore here and it’s making us smarter,” he said. 

They eagerly waited on the court for it to be their group’s turn to play in the pool. Another hobby the duo enjoy: swimming. 

“We don’t have much money to pay for this pool. It’s huge,” Nathan said. 

He concluded that he wishes he could spend forever in the pool playing with his best friend. 

Others on the court played with jump ropes, hula hoops, and tossed footballs to each other. 

An estimated 1,500 New Haven Public School students visited camp Farnam throughout the July summer programming, reported Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans. That’s five times the number of NHPS students that would visit the camp in the past for a six week all-day partnership with Camp Farnam for 300 NHPS students.

This year all ten K‑8 NHPS summer camps visited Camp Farnam twice. 

This is the first time NHPS has offered field trips during its summer program, Redd Hannans added. Next year, she hopes to extend the time for students’ visits to the camp to beyond an hour. She noted that for families to enjoy Camp Farnam on their own, it can cost between $300 and $400 a week. 

“It’s important to get kids outdoors and get that movement in,” Redd-Hannans said.

Program director Marcquis Knox said Camp Farnam is the oldest community center in Connecticut. It aims to provide inner city youth with the chance to discover new and interesting hands-on activities through arts, swimming, walking trails, double dutch, four square, basketball, martial arts, fencing, and more.

As a group of students headed to the pool Tuesday, one called out ​“I wanna play tag in the pool!” 

Once suited up and in the pool, students played basketball in the pool’s hoop and had a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest.

Camp director Aisha Knox said she hopes for next year’s NHPS visits to be longer to allow her to introduce the students to all Camp Farnam has to offer such as its trails and camp store to buy goodies with ​“funny money,” which is the camp’s form of money earned by either helping someone in need, learning something new, and/or using kind words.

Under the pavilion was Camp Farnam counselor and mindfulness leader Melanie Mesa, who painted hearts, basketballs, football players, and butterflies on students faces. 

Signage on the pavilion walls read messages like ​“mindfulness matters” and ​“school is cool knowledge rules.”

Mesa is a Hillhouse graduate who grew up in New Haven and also attended Truman through the 5th grade then Betsy Ross and Wilbur Cross for her first three years of high school. This fall she will enter her sophomore year at Central Connecticut State University with a major in social work. 

This year is her second one working as a spring and summer facilitator at Camp Farnam. For her first time Tuesday she painted students’ faces after finding the paint kits in the camps arts and crafts supplies. 

For some students, Mesa said, having fun is not always an everyday occurrence during school or summer camp. But it’s impossible to not have fun at Camp Farnam she said.

She recalled not having such opportunities while in middle school to expose her to new places (especially not a half hour away), activities, and NHPS students of different ages. 

The closest she got was an end-of-year field day celebration at her school. 

“If I got to come here it would of made a huge difference,” she said. ​“It has everything, so it’s something to look forward to in summer.”

Now a counselor, Mesa aims for the youth she works with to have a fun-filled day that creates lifelong memories and introduces them to new hobbies like bird watching, swimming, or mindfulness.