A little girls grins joyfully after getting her face painted during Camp Win Summer Carnival on Aug. 21
Photo by Dean Moses
Children living in the Win homeless shelters partied in the sun in Midtown on Monday with an end-of-summer carnival, giving them a chance to enjoy one more fun day this season.
Dubbed Camp Win Summer Carnival and taking place on the grounds of St. Bartholomew’s Church located at 335 Park Ave, the event is the culmination of Camp Win — a summer camp that aims to combat learning-loss associated with shelter stays by providing them with field trips to the likes of the Statue of Liberty and Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.
For CEO of Win Christine Quinn, the festival is about providing children suffering from homelessness with an outlet to enjoy themselves despite the trauma of living in a shelter. Win serves as the city’s and nation’s largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families with children.
“It’s traumatic for an adult, it’s worse for a child. They more than likely have had to leave their school, leave their friends and start over in a new place where there’s lots of rules. And so we want to make sure that as much as we can. We create opportunities where children can be children,” said Quinn, a former City Council speaker.
According to Quinn, Win shelters house between 2,500 to 2,700 children a night, which has been exasperated by the migrant crisis. Win now also cares for some 700 asylum seeker children, a population which Quinn describes as having much greater needs than traditional families due to the lack of access to resources.
“They have no prior family connections, and they don’t qualify for any benefits. So a traditional family, they come in and in a couple of days we get their food stamps turned on, for example, that doesn’t happen with asylum seekers,” Quinn told amNewYork Metro. “Our pantry has had to expand greatly, and it can’t be just dry goods…
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