By Alice Reid
Friday, July 11, 2008
D onald Brown knows how big an uncle's responsibilities can really be. When his sister, a troubled drug addict, abandoned his infant nieces, he stepped in.
The first time was 14 years ago, when he claimed Tyler at D.C. General Hospital. Six years later, he did the same, fetching little Bria home from Howard University Hospital. In the meantime, he had added their older sister, Brittney, to his household after the death of his mother, who had been her guardian.
Brittney, who was 10 then, is now a college student.
Brown, 46 and single, is raising the girls alone. He juggles that responsibility with a job organizing the catering and other operational needs at the large downtown law firm K&L Gates.
Like any single parent, he has coped with child-care issues, kept up with the laundry, the homework, even the girls' hair. He brags that he "can plait and do twist braids."
Still, summers have been a special challenge with school out and the continuing pressures of his job.
Enter Camp Moss Hollow.
Bria, 8, is a new camper this summer, and she has been able to attend two sessions. Depending on enrollment, she could qualify for additional weeks at camp.
For Brown, who visited Moss Hollow before he signed up Bria, the camp has provided a breather from cobbling together complicated child-care arrangements.
For Bria, camp has meant having a real, honest-to-goodness summer: running and playing outdoors, swimming, doing things she never dreamed of, such as paddling in a canoe on a pond. She has also lived the camp slogan: "You can always find a friend at the Hollow."
Bria has found several and she reels off their names: "Dymand, Brianna, Alicia."
"We like to talk about camp and how cool it is," she said.
Bria appreciates the dramatic, and her favorite event was a skit she and her cabin-mates performed.
"It was a remix of Little Red Riding Hood," she told a visitor. "We put in a little bit of hip-hop. And the Big Bad Wolf was scared. She cried!"
Without camp, Bria "would have been sitting in the house every day," Brown said. Even though his home is on a quiet tree-lined street of rowhouses in Northeast Washington, Brown said he doesn't want Bria going outside if he's not there to supervise her.
Brown read about Moss Hollow in The Washington Post and called Family and Child Services of Washington, the private charity that operates the camp, to see whether Bria qualified for a scholarship.
With his modest salary, a small support payment through the courts -- less than $250 a month -- and his sister's tangles with the law, Brown qualified for help for Bria.
Moss Hollow is another of those blessings that he refers to when he talks about what it has meant to raise Bria, Tyler and Brittney.
"It all feels like it fit together like a puzzle," he said, adding that he never doubted he would be able to raise the girls.
"Once you have one, you just know what to do."
How to Help
Camp director Hope Asterilla is fond of telling her campers that Moss Hollow offers them space: "physical space, emotional space."
"And when you find that space," she tells them around the campfire, "you can go back and take a piece of the Hollow with you."
So please help more children take a piece of the Hollow home. So far, we've raised $303,404.10 through your giving. We've got $171,595.90 to go by July 25.
Please send a check or money order payable to Send a Kid to Camp to P.O. Box 96237, Washington, D.C. 20090-6237. To contribute online, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/camp. You'll see a place to make a donation. Click there. To give via MasterCard or Visa by phone, call 202-334-5100 and follow the instructions on the taped message.
McCormick & Schmick's restaurants is expanding its incentives. In addition to donating proceeds from its Wednesday "camp specials" to the campaign, the chain will provide a certificate for lunch for two to anyone who gives $250 or more to Send a Kid to Camp. Donors of $500 or more will receive a certificate for a dinner for two.
To qualify, donations must be received by midnight July 25. Certificates will be distributed by Family and Child Services.
One of our readers, Tracey Friedlander of Bethesda, has given the campaign five box-seat tickets, worth $95 each, to the sold-out production of "The Lion King" at the Kennedy Center. The tickets are for the 7:30 p.m. show Aug. 23. Next week, Family and Child Services will begin a silent auction of the tickets via the Web.
Watch this space for details.
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