A group of more than a dozen children from New York stepped off the bus at Roger Williams Park on Thursday into the open arms of local families.
It was like a family reunion and with the happy yelps and hugs came lots of tears. Everyone has grown so much in one year — “Look at you!” a woman shouts at a young boy who gets off the bus. He's sporting shiny new sneakers. The woman’s teenage daughter begins rubbing his freshly-shaved head and grins.
Another boy gets off the bus. He looks between 13 and 14 — not quite a young boy anymore, showing the makings of a young man.
“Get over here,” a woman said, grabbing him. He smiles. For that second, it’s a mother embracing her son. She notices he has an earbud in just one of his ears.
“Get that out of your ear,” she quips, yanking it out. He smiles sheepishly and they walk away.
The children, partaking in one- or two-week vacations away from the city, were here because of their involvement with the Fresh Air Fund program. And for host families that have been welcoming them year after year, it was hard to contain the joy at seeing those smiling faces stream off the bus once again.
One of those faces was Deovion Hardy, who has been coming to Rhode Island since she was six to stay with the Hagberg family of Cranston. That was six years ago. They call her “Dee Dee.”
“When she was six-years-old she got off that bus and didn’t look back,” said Jeanne Hagberg, who is also a volunteer for the Fresh Air Fund. “Some kids, they cry, they’re scared. Not Dee Dee. She got off the bus and said ‘I’m good. Let’s go.’”
Dee Dee has gotten to become good friends with Grace Hagberg, Jeanne’s daughter, who waited with her mom for the Fresh Air Fund kids on a hazy Thursday afternoon at Roger Williams Park.
“She looks forward to it,” Hagberg said of her daughter. “When they were little, they fought like brothers and sisters. I'd seperate them, give them time-outs, you know. Now, they just kind of hang out.”
The girls have been able to stay in touch, but sometimes it's hard for Hardy to give the Hagbergs updates. Last year, she was sent home with self addressed stamped envelopes. But she lost them.
She also didn't tell the Hagbergs that she didn't have to go to summer school this year, so she could have come for two weeks instead of one, or come at a different date this year. But that's life.
"She moves around a lot, so I didn't take it personally," Hagberg said.
The Hagbergs like to take Hardy and head to Plymouth, Mass., where the family has a house. It’s near a freshwater pond.
Hardy said she likes to eat Hagberg’s special broccoli and cheese (usually served with a roast chicken) and to swim a lot when she’s on the annual trip.
She made it clear that the Fresh Air Fund has changed her life.
“The last time I come here, I’m not going back,” Hardy said. “You can only come until you’re 18 so when they say alright it’s the last time, I’m just not going to go back to the bus.
“I’ll eventually go back to New York, get my car, get all my shoes, my clothes, and come back. Eventually.”
Since 1877, The Fresh Air Fund, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities. For more information about hosting a Fresh Air child, call Donna Barboza at 401-439-8262 or visit The Fresh Air Fund online at www.freshair.org.