Children head to summer sleepaway camps, thanks to Scott Beigel Memorial Fund

Twelve-year-old Allen McKenzie looked a little uneasy as he waited to board the bus for a sleepaway camp upstate Sunday. This would be the Huntington resident's first year at Camp Herrlich, in Putnam County, and he had no idea what to expect in the next two weeks. But he will have the company of his sister Alison, 13, who would be coming to camp, too. When asked what activities they were looking forward to, Alison answered for both of them: “Swimming!”

The siblings are two of 52 children from Long Island who will attend Camp Herrlich, thanks to a $78,000 grant from the Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund, based in Dix Hills.

The fund was formed to honor Beigel, who grew up in Dix Hills and was a geography teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where he and 16 others were killed in a mass shooting in 2018. Beigel died as he sheltered students in his classroom.

“Scott went to camp for the first time at age 7,” said his mother, Linda Beigel Schulman, and returned every year as a camper into his teens and then as a counselor. “It was his happy place,” Schulman said. “He became a teacher so he could keep going to camp in the summers.”

When Beigel was killed, Schulman said, she and his father, Michael Schulman, immediately knew they would establish a foundation to honor him, and they knew what its mission would be: to send children to camp — and to seek out underserved children whose lives have been touched by gun violence.

This year the foundation will send 264 children to seven nonprofit sleepaway camps in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida. Since its founding shortly after the shooting, the foundation has sent more than 1,000 kids to camp.

“The parents express such a lot of appreciation,” said Katie Johnson, summer camp coordinator at Suffolk County Family and Children Services, which helps identify children who could benefit from the program. The camp, she says, goes “above and beyond” in supporting the children, and fostering “social and emotional learning” as well as a fun outdoor experience.

The organizers try to encourage campers to return every summer, and to become counselors, which allows them to build skills and to build “a sense of community,” Linda Schulman said.

Angel Osario, 12, who arrived in the United States from El Salvador five years ago and now lives in Riverhead, will be returning for his second year at camp, and says he would be very happy to return every year. He said his favorite activities are swimming and canoeing.

Akirah Saunders, 10, and her brother Amir, 9, are first-time campers. Amir said he was interested in hiking, and Akirah was up to try everything.

Their mother, Ashanta Murray, 39, of Riverhead, said she would miss them terribly while they are away. “They’ve never been away this long, ever.”

“But I’m just happy they’ll be able to have new experiences and new adventures,” she said.

The scene at the Park and Ride in Melville was cheerful and chaotic, as parents checked in with camp staff and helped their children shove their bags into the bowels of the bus that would ferry them upstate. After a brief hug with their mother, Allen and Alison McKenzie boarded the bus to begin their adventure.