Resident receives award from Fresh Air Fund
By Angela Greiner Community Reporter

PHOTO/SUBMITTED Janet Foley (center) receives the "Fund Representative of the Year" award in New York City Feb. 2 from Jenny Morgenthau (left), executive director of the Fresh Air Fund, and Angie Pender-Fox (right), director of the Friendly Town program.

Marlborough - With summer just a few months away, many local families are checking out summer camps and booking family holidays. For Marlborough resident Janet Foley, who is an active volunteer for the Fresh Air Fund, the spring represents the beginning of a campaign to find suitable host families to sponsor innercity children.

Foley, whose volunteer efforts with the Fresh Air Fund began 17 years ago, recently received the "Fund Representative of the Year" award for her work as an outstand- ing member in central Massachusetts.

The main goal of the organization, Foley explained, is to provide a free summer vacation to underprivileged children from New York City.

The Fresh Air Fund is a nonprofit that was started in 1877 by a minister in Philadelphia who wanted to give children living in the city, exposed to tuberculosis, some fresh air and healthy food. Since then, the organization has developed a community of over 300 "friendly towns" throughout 13 states and Canada that have hosted over 1.7 million children. The organization teams local families who volunteer as hosts for one or two weeks with a child from New York City.

"These kids just need to get away from the city," Foley said. "They do not need a lot, just a chance to get outside and play."

The host families are responsible for the majority of the children's time; however, there are also activities like trips to Memorial Beach in Marlborough and to Water Country, N.H., that the whole group participates in.

To be a host family does not mean planning lots of diff erent activities, Foley said, because the kids are happy to just walk the dog or ride bikes.

"Many of the kids, when they are home in the city, cannot even go outside," Foley said. "They are excited about little things like how quiet it is at night and that you can see the stars."

On a recent trip to the Bronx to visit one of the kids who has spent the past five summers with Foley, she observed a vigil for a child who had been raped and murdered. Foley said that seeing first-hand what kind of danger her 15-year-old visitor lived in was shocking.

Whether it is Jason, now 25, Will, 22, or Stephanie, 15, Foley's house is always full during holidays and vacations. Whatever the kids need throughout the year, the Foleys are there for support.

"They know that they can always call or come out," Foley said. "We are always here. My daughter, who IMs them regularly, calls them her summer brothers and sisters."

With registration in full swing for the upcoming summer, Foley is appealing to the community to consider sponsoring a child. In years past, Fresh Air would have a pool of about 30 host families in the Marlborough community; unfortunately, last year Foley had fewer than 10.

Foley is optimistic, though, because the program is growing in towns like Northborough, which had 30 host families last summer.

"These kids have changed my life," Foley said. "… They are just kids. Being a host family gives a child, who might otherwise be locked in an apartment all day watching TV while their parents work, a vacation."

For more information about the Fresh Air Fund or becoming a host family, visit the website at www.freshair.org or call Janet Foley at 508-460-3473.