When the long dining room table at Hope House is covered with bags of food, crafts, and paper goods, it can only mean one thing: it's time for summer camp. Though the supplies are typical camp fare, this is far from a typical day camp. This is a camp for dads who are prison inmates at the Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution, a medium security facility in Cumberland, Maryland.
Nationwide, the prison population grew to almost 1.6 million, and while there are many programs across the country for incarcerated mothers, Hope House Executive Director Carol Fennelly says that this is the only summer camp of its kind for male inmates and their children.
"Guys in prison are forgotten as dads; they are just seen as convicts," she says. "What we try to do is lift them up and honor them as fathers. Regardless of the circumstances that brought someone to prison, he is still some child's dad."
Inmates apply to be considered for camp and must have a clean conduct record for a year in order to be accepted. Fennelly and her team conduct three meetings with the prison dads before camp begins, covering ground rules and expectations, their relationship with their kids, and watching a video of previous camp sessions.
Class runs from 10 am to 3 pm over four days with crafts, games, music, creative writing. On the first day, fathers work together to create a show for their children. Another day is movie day, complete with popcorn. For many children, this is the first opportunity to go to the movies with their dad. There is a large art project, creating life-size murals around the theme, "What would you do together if dad weren't in prison?" Father and child work together, and then talk about their art once it's completed.
On the final day of camp, the kids perform for their dads, and there is a teary birthday party to celebrate all of the birthdays spent apart. "Even hardened prison staff can't handle all of the emotion of the last day," Fennelly says. "There isn't a dry eye in the room."
Fennelly has as many stories as she has had campers: the child who was meeting his father for the first time; the inmate labeled difficult by the prison guards who transformed his behavior so he could qualify for the program and maintained good behavior for three years so he could reunite with his child each summer.
"What this camp does for these dads is to have them come face-to-face with the consequences they've made. When they have to look in their child's eyes, they get it—sometimes for the first time." For a slide show of Hope House's summer program, click here.
